Watching the news, if this goes down and Qaddafi survives, we will have so much blood on our hands.
At its most basic: very evil leader, people putting it on the line, and we stand by on a very vulnerable regime. This is a 6-7m population, all along the coast. This isn't Iran - not even close.
Don't care about the framework (NATO, UN, whatever), because, in the end, it'll be us that leads the way.
I'm with Ajami on this one: a "moment of reckoning for the Obama administration." Pledging humanitarian aid won't be enough. Obama will regret this like Clinton regretted Rwanda. Time for Mrs. Clinton to earn her spurs.
We let this go down and we'll be hated anyway, and we hate ourselves for letting it happen. So what is the big difference? There will be no working with the guy after this anyway, so what is the downside? The Saudis hate him, because of the hit he tried on Abdullah.
We recognize the rebels. We supply them. We drone and fly aircraft in order to make it impossible for Qaddafi to win. We tell the Russians and Chinese this presents zero precedent for anything involving them.
We simply do what's right.
I realize it's no easy call for Obama, but at some point you need to move away from what you can't live with and toward something you can stand. Qaddafi, if he wins, will go on killing and torturing for a very long time.
Just about everybody needs outside help in these things. We did.