Talleyrand makes some points that I wish were not true, because I know the intervention in Libya was well-intentioned, and because it is still too early to assess the result of the strategy. But I find it hard not to see the wisdom in this:
If events in Syria follow their logical course, we could see the Lebanonization of that country. A proxy war there between Iran and Saudi Arabia would most likely draw in Lebanon and Iraq and probably Israel. About the only force that could prevent or deter it would be a serious, collective threat of Western intervention, the vehicle for which would most surely have to be NATO.
Alas, NATO isn’t looking so mighty right now in this part of the world. Preventing a regional, sectarian war in the Middle East? Sorry. Too busy cataloguing tribes west of Cyrenaica. The West, if such a thing still exists, no longer does politics or strategy wholesale. No matter that, by some estimates, more Libyan civilians have already been killed or displaced throughout Libya than Barack Obama promised to save in Benghazi. Far higher numbers of casualties await further east. And Western credibility—thanks to its hasty and ill planned diversion against Col. Gaddafi—is much lower than it needs to be. Let us pray that the winds shift soon in the other direction.
Indeed. Let us pray.
The Dish 