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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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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