James Traub's rationale for the war:
NATO and the United States … have to stay the course [in Libya] not only to deliver the Libyan people from Qaddafi but also to demonstrate that such interventions are not exercises in imperial hubris — or "wars of whim," as my Foreign Policy colleague Stephen Walt mockingly puts it.
Greg Scoblete sighs:
You can usually tell a military conflict has lost all strategic sense when its advocates can no longer offer any justification for it other than "credibility." In this case, the West is being exhorted to spend more money and put NATO lives at risk in a conflict of little impact on U.S. national security so that we can… spend more money and put more NATO lives at risk in a similar conflict in the future. Makes sense!
Larison piles on.
The Dish 