No doubt this mess will only get bigger, with more big names thrown into the maelstrom.

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And the uniformed crowd poured itself into the maelstrom, throwing themselves bodily into a song of personal revolt.

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But, as the wars worsen and more refugees are sent fleeing across borders, some of them could be sucked into the maelstrom.

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Because, so the argument goes, Mr Bashir may want to stymie peace talks due to take place in Libya at the end of this month and discourage foreign peacekeepers from venturing into the Sudanese maelstrom.

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With the West rightly wary of plunging into yet another maelstrom, the Arab League, for years a toothless and often hypocritical body, has admirably taken the lead, asking Kofi Annan, a former secretary of the United Nations, to seek, under the joint aegis of the UN and the league, to persuade Mr Assad to negotiate.

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First, the West has a security interest in preventing the region from slipping into a maelstrom of conflict.

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Into this maelstrom, Jefferson delivered perhaps the most conciliatory inaugural address in U.S. history, "better liked by our own party than his own, " in the words of Massachusetts Federalist George Cabot.

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