Two articles in last Sunday's Post shed light on the problems facing the Obama Adminstration's stated political end in Libya - the departure of Moammar Gaddafi. I hadn't seen Carl von Clausewitz's (the famous 19th century German military strategist) name evoked in a long time, but Gideon Rose raises the key message of Clausewitz: The central strategic challenge of any war is how to use military means to achieve political ends. Rose gets bonus points for also throwing in "the fog of war."
Many commentators have pointed out the mismatch between Obama's military strategy to enforce a no fly-zone and his ultimate desire to see Gaddaffi go. The result will likely be mission creep - even if NATO rather than the U.S. ends up leading this campaign. As Rose quotes, "By intervening to help one side in a civil war, it is now embroiled in Libya’s political future to a vastly greater extent than it was two weeks ago." Moreover, Dan Byman questions the efficacy of the no fly zone, using Iraq in the 1990s as an apt analogy.
This is the sentiment of other commentators such as Fareed Zakaria. You can throw me in with the skeptics about the efficacy of the current policy towards Libya. The best outcome is perhaps putting enough pressure on Gaddaffi to agree to a cease fire and negotiate some poltiical settlement for transition before NATO has to rely on ground troops or supply the rebels with arms.
For international (and perhaps domestic) reputational reasons, there was probably no way Obama could have not responded. So a middle ground approach may have been the best poltical solution on Obama's part.
On a side note, I wonder how a pacifist would respond to the humanitarian crisis in Libya?
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