Editor's note: Guest columnist Jim Della-Giacoma is filling in for Richard Gowan, who is on leave until early April.
A United Nations Security Council debate can feel like traveling in an airplane at cruising altitude: a quick continental overflight in a rarefied atmosphere, far above the dirty reality of the conflict below. The debate can be driven by factors that may have little to do with what may be happening on the ground.
But from time to time, council members come back to earth and get dust on their shoes when they engage in road-trip diplomacy. In January members went to Burundi; this month they were in West Africa.