Beyond their country, they have inaugurated an era, and it is difficult to believe it will have no effect upon the region in general and, in particular, upon Syria.

And this anti-Iraq war, this military intervention that came, not to parachute democracy down on the heads of a silent people, but to support an insurrection that had already demanded it and, in preparation, had provided itself with transitory but legitimate representation will remain, as well, one for the history books.

What is dying: an ancient concept of sovereignty in which all crimes are permitted as long as they go on within the frontiers of the state.

What has been born: the idea of the universality of rights that is no longer a pious hope but a passionate obligation for all who truly believe in the unity of mankind and in the virtue of the right to intervene which is its corollary.