The image of a dead Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach has inspired a wave of Western soul-searching, with much talk about how “the world” failed 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, who drowned along with his mother and brother while trying to escape their country’s civil war.

This reaction is understandable, but its policy implications are unclear. And since policy questions are where outrage ultimately cashes out, it makes sense to try to think through what it really means to say that we – America, the West, the world — failed the Kurdi family, and helped consign them to their fate.

One thing it might mean is that the world’s powers, the United States chief among them, had a responsibility to prevent the Syrian war from developing, and a responsibility to protect its victims once it did.

Read the article “Who Failed Aylan Kurdi?” on nytimes.com.