You and other conservatives have, for a while, been calling on President Obama to arm the rebels in Syria. While we would all love to see the perpetrators of the violence face some sort of comeuppance — and if it’s the kind that deprives them of political and military power, so much the better — your calls are disingenuous.

You know that we cannot in good conscience do that. We don’t know who the rebels are; some are probably affiliated with al Qaeda. Would you be okay if the arms you want President Obama to send ended up in the hands of people who want to harm the United States, its citizens, and its interests? Would you, should those arms be used to cause atrocities or the deaths of civilians, refrain from turning those events back on the President and his party for having provided the guns and ammo? I’m guessing no.

No one outside the leadership of Iran, China, and Russia wants Syrian strongman Assad to stay in power. You’d better serve the cause of freedom by helping convince those self-interested actors to put pressure on Assad to leave willingly.

You and yours will criticize others for making political hay out of tragedy, so don’t do it yourself, okay? Unless you know of some reliable and responsible rebel force that the intelligentsia of the world doesn’t, please shut up about sending weapons to Syria.