Marc Lynch is tired of all the negativity in current assessments of the war:
[T]he intervention in Libya should be recognized as a success and real accomplishment for the international community. The NATO intervention did save Libya’s protestors from a near-certain bloodbath in Benghazi. It did help Libyans free themselves from what was an extremely nasty, violent, and repressive regime. It did not lead to the widely predicted quagmire, the partition of Libya, the collapse of the NTC, or massive regional conflagration. It was fought under a real, if contestable, international legal mandate which enjoyed widespread Arab support. It did help to build — however imperfectly and selectively — an emerging international norm rejecting impunity for regimes which massacre their people. Libya’s success did inspire Arab democracy protestors across the region. And it did not result in an unpopular, long-term American military occupation which it would have never seemed prudent to withdraw.
Richard Cleary pushes back against the “we attacked a friend” line:
Being an American “ally”—and this term is a stretch for Gaddafi’s regime—does not entitle one to butcher one’s own people, however. We agreed to do business with Gaddafi because of what Condoleezza Rice called a “strategic change of direction”; beginning with Tripoli’s giving up WMD aspirations, renouncing terrorism and compensating the families of victims of the Lockerbie bombing. These acts were never sufficient to absolve Gaddafi of future crimes. Rather, Gaddafi’s improved behavior was understood as the first steps of a new Libyan foreign policy.
The Dish 