Thank you for the question.
Your question is a very good one.
It was very interesting, if you consider the past testimony of the NATO representatives on this issue—Deputy Assistant Secretary General James Appathurai, for example. He emphasized how important it was for NATO to have the legitimacy of a UN mandate, and he noted that there was only one occasion where for a short time, because of the blockage—and of course he was talking about Kosovo—military action was taken without a UN mandate, and ultimately there was a retroactive endorsement by the UN, if you will. I would point to that because one of the things NATO has learned through the operations it has been engaged in is how fundamentally important having that UN authorization and legitimacy is.
In our previous discussion we talked about how difficult these actions are. Without UN authorization, they are infinitely more difficult, and that is part of the issue with respect to Syria, I would suggest. It's just so difficult to have the necessary broad legitimacy in your operation—to have, for example, Arab participants in the Libyan operation because it was broadly supported by the international community and had that important UN sanction. That is so fundamental to the success of an operation.
I will say right now that it doesn't mean there might not be some exception in the future where we say, oh, the council is so blocked, and we really believe we have to act even without it. But that should be seen as an extraordinary exception in extraordinary circumstances, because you're making your chances of success that much more difficult.
I don't know if that answers your question or not.