How far this goes and what really matters
Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 10:41AM 
Obama remains smart not to commit too many resource or the appellation "America's war" to Libya, given everything else he has in play right now.
Easy thing to do to prioritize thinking: Ask yourself what history will judge him on in 20 years.
Now allowing globalization to head into a massive second dip is #1, hence not all Shiia aspirants to democracy are equal - right now. There he can push the Saudis to push the rest, but there isn't much else he can do. Qatar and Bahrain, with their military installations, fall inside this notion. The Carter Doctrine still makes sense, even if the only threat is Iran.
Egypt's evolution will come second, given its importance to the Sunni Arab world. There he gets more than a passing grade - H.W. Bush-style - for not screwing it up.
Third comes managing Iran's achievement of nukes, which I describe in that manner because I think it is inevitable, given their needs and desires and our stand-off with them. I see none of that changing any time soon, but we can hope.
Fourth would be to get Syria to fall next, because that would represent major rollback on Iran's influence, would lighten our load in Lebanon, and - by extension - would chill Israel considerably. Plus, once Syria really in trouble/falls, then the whole contagion feels that much closer to resumption in Iran itself.
Unfortunately, Libya ranks about fifth - above Tunisia but nothing else on the list. So our two carriers stay in the Arabian Sea and we do the Leviathan-lite in Libya.
And those are more than defensible choices.
So, again, for a prez given to reading histories of his predecessors, Obama offers us a Balkans-like role for US in Libya, and plays it very Baker-Bush on the 2.0/Facebooks.
Napoleon Bonaparte once said, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." Plenty of enemies out there making plenty of mistakes and suffering serious losses.
Reader Comments (1)
Still think it is very hard to topple the Colonel with out troops on the ground. Reporters with the "Rebel" forces relay photos and stories indicating a confused, disorganized and uncoordinated effort. Just heard a Brit complaining that they have been in Afghanistan for 10 years now. Bad reaction to proposed governments cuts by British citizens. Patience is wearing thin.
Political settlement? What country would ever take this wild man inside it's borders? And if there were ever a man on this earth that would scheme to get back...it's Gadafi. We refused to take the Shah and he was our guy. I don't think the fellow in Venezuela wants to grant asylum to somebody that is as dangerous as the Colonel.
Sorry about Billy Joel.