The dream date is, of course, the UN. But Russia has already dismissed the notion of UN airstrikes, arguing that they're superfluous. Not true, unfortunately.
Centcom boss James Mattis on the Hill yesterday tried hard to spell out just what would be involved, but the bottom line is we'd be at war with another Muslim country, once again doing regime change.
I know, I know. We're NEVER going to do this because this is all in our heads and there's not actually any demand signal out there that draws us in!
But this is the gist of why I wrote "Pentagon's New Map": globalization continues to advance, and stuff like this will continue to happen. We can be involved or on the sidelines, but these instabilities are going to happen - time and again. To pretend otherwise is to bury your head in the sand.
But this is nonetheless a serious Rubicon to cross. Once you start bombing, you are committed to following through on other things. Plus, you really do make it that much harder to bargain Qaddafi out of power (here's some of your money back, and we were just kidding on war crimes charges), and there is good to be found in that path - if you can pull it off.
So, once in, you really commit yourself to the finishing.
Still, what a target this guy presents: stuck basically in the capital city.
Of course, if you do him, why not Gbagbo in Ivory Coast, etc.?
But here's where the lack of explicit rules and understanding with the Russians and Chinese haunts us. We want our free hand and so we don't limit ourselves in these things, and that creates the fear that prompts Moscow and Beijing to worry that the precedent can be used against them. If we were explicit on this subject, we might get somewhere, but we choose to keep it loose - largely for our own freedom of action - and now it comes back to complicate these events.
And that's too bad, because it's clear to everybody now that Qaddafi must go. We just don't have that explicit A-to-Z rule set for processing politically bankrupt states.