the active persecution of peoples by their regimes.

Then there's the military question. Military intervention now would be a pinprick, unless the generals opened ports, airports and land routes. "The military would find it very difficult," General Sir Rupert Smith, the guru of forward British military thinking, told The First Post. "And the military isn't very well designed for the task. The best thing they have is helicopters - but after that you need professional aid workers to run the logistics for food distribution and large numbers in medical and hygiene teams." He also believes that the allied force could only cover a fraction of the stricken area - making matters worse for those who couldn't be reached.

America and Britain don't want to make a sustained commitment to Burma, as their forces are overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan. Behind the scenes there is again a lot of talk about action against Iran - alarmingly more than in public. The aim is a punitive operation against Iran's Revolutionary Guard, who are blamed for the increase of violence by the Shia militias in

Iraq and for stirring up Hezbollah in Lebanon. Some sort of 'strategic raid' against the Guard, somewhere along the Gulf or close to the Iraqi border, seems to be on the cards.

This doesn't mean the lessons of the dreadful failure of the Burmese junta - and the international community - should be left unheeded. Global warming means such disasters are likely to happen frequently and with greater intensity. Rescue and relief from natural human disasters, flood pestilence and pandemics are now a prime task for security services, army, police and paramedics - and they need to get ready for this. Such human disasters can trigger further human disasters - a chain reaction which may only be beginning in Burma. And these violent human upheavals are the causes of war.

We now have to recognise and identify these new Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and unhorse them in the name of humanity. That is what the 'Responsibility to Protect' should really mean. If the military "isn't very well designed for the task", as Rupert Smith puts it, then it should be.