Joyner worries that there isn't:
Peacekeeping, of course, requires that there be a peace to keep. As the ongoing UN missions in Liberia and Ivory Coast demonstrate, blue helmets are not a panacea. If the mere presence of trained outside security forces is insufficient to prevent the outbreak of sectarian fighting, the peacekeepers then get caught in the crossfire. If they choose sides and shift into kinetic operations — for which they tend to be ill-equipped to begin with — they can often lose their legitimacy.
In theory, this would all have been worked out before NATO intervened, thus taking ownership of the outcome. And it's possible that someone, somewhere planned all this out. But, if they did, they've been awfully quiet about it.
Larison sees this is as an endemic problem in humanitarian intervention.
(Photo: A Libyan rebel fighter patrols the entrance at a checkpoint some 18 kilometres west of Ajdabiya on the road to the frontline where a battle for the control of the strategic oil refinery town of Brega is taking place, on July 19, 2011. By Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty Images)
The Dish 