She makes Dubya sound like Robert Taft. Is there an intervention she doesn't love? If we followed advice like hers we'd probably have already invaded Bulgaria to prevent anti-Rom violence, or perhaps have a presence in Sri Lanka. Of course, goes without saying we'd be all over Subsaharan Africa.

Narrowness of opinion amongst policy makers? Welcome to America. Take your pick: liberal internationalism vs. neoconservatism. The question isn't whether to intervene or not, it's a question of where to intervene. Because we must "do something" "over there." If you don't argue for intervention you aren't serious, are crazy, or are callous. The first two accusations are indefensible stereotypes and on the last accusation, why don't we just have a massive social safety net if we are so worried about everyone? I'll never understand the cognitive dissonance of so-called conservatives on that score. Government intervention is ok provided stuff gets blown up? Government can't get it right domestically, but abroad it is infallible, provided a suitably bellicose leader runs the show?

I do agree, with Mr. Ricks, Congress has abdicated responsibility for foreign policy, cowards and unimaginative conformists that most of them are.

Daniel Larison over at the American Conservative has it right, these days non-interventionists must argue why the US shouldn't be at war at any given time. The default position for this country is to be at war.

I was wrong, I'd figured it would be at least 10 years before Iraq Syndrome wore off. If Iraq had gone marginally better, or could have been spun better (same for the US economy), you betcha we'd already been in Libya.

I am oddly sanguine about this war. If, heaven help us!, history goes forward and the US isn't involved it might not be the end of the world. I suspect that more than anything else, that is what terrifies interventionists. Events occurring without these control freaks having a hand in 'em? There might be economic pain because of oil prices, but stuff happens, and we need a catalyst to shake up the currently subsidized and long-term unfeasible transportation/residential system. Prestige might be lost, gasp! Because prestige should worry a patriot more than the economic hollowing out of the US. If we don't intervene, perhaps the Sun will still rise in the East,and then, perhaps, interventionists might have to justify their hysteria.

McCain and Obama (before Palin) presented a very difficult choice for me as a voter. McCain was the "lead the military better, but piss the world off even more than Bush" option, while I assumed Obama would be weaker sauce than Clinton as a CinC but would at least finesse us out of the mess as a diplomat. I'd lost most of my faith Afghanistan was a salvagable situation by then, so I leaned toward the "get out with finesse" option. Palin kind of took it off the table.

But now Obama's not getting us out, and we're back to a situation where we need to pack our lunch for 'stan. It's bad to be the guy who's there to turn off the lights and not actually do the job. I think 'Obama's Wars' shows he's a little out of his wheelhouse when it comes time to throw lead. He's got a good foreign policy team, which I think actually does require eloquent management of the Congressional relationship. For the same reason, and as Mr. Ricks points out, he's got a bad military strategy team.

All that said, I'm not sure why extricating ourselves is so difficult. Who the heck in Congress is nailing his shoes to the floor in Kabul? The majority of the American population wants out of there. Half the military wants out of there. The economy wants us out of there. John Q, GI Joe, and Dow Jones-- that's a heck of a lineup. He should have had us out of there much earlier.

Looking at the road ahead, he's going to have the same millstone around his neck come reelection that Dubya threw around McCain's-- a war gone bad. He never looked like a good commander. Now he looks like a chief of state that failed. Not good on the debate floor. And therein lies my reason for withholding the renewal on my card's subscription.

Show me Gingrich or Huckabee with a lot of talk to get us out, some good ideas for the economy (they've had them), and none of the kooky Tea Party rhetoric (and dear God, NOT Bachmann as a running mate), and I'll be tempted to flash a red card.

And if we go into Libya, I'm moving to Germany.

I vote for a staff w broader expertise. How about a Colonial Office? That is why I despair of getting an endstate in Crackistan Iraq, the Brits had more expertise than we. They had orientalists, linguists, real experts and the Indian Army to do most of the fighting and they didn't have much luck.

Ralph Bagnold is my main man more than Gertrude Bell.

Nunn-Lugar is probably about the last serious thing that came out of the US congress on foreign policy.

We're not missing out on any great opportunities in Libya (But Wait There's MORE!!??!!). Things that actually ARE in our National Interest are likely to pretty clear, sitting around trying to dream up some compelling national interest is, well, not very compelling.

If the Arab League wants a no fly area, we have been selling them F15s and AWACS for 20 years, they ought to be able to create a no fly area. Asking the UN Security Council (w Russia and China) is like asking my English Setters to do a no fly area. Not very serious.

I say that LBJ viewed Viet-Nam multi-dimensionally while Obama only sees Afghanistan from a one sided view.

How so? LBJ had a topographical scale model of Khe Sanh built to view from all angles during the siege, where as Obama only gets a power point presentation of significant events in Afghanistan on a flat screen.

The U.S. government is almost to the point of paralysis, except as Tom mentions, looking to the next election cycle, which they seem to find the muscle function to become active in, primarily for their own political survival.

A prime example being Captain McCain USN (Ret) and now Arizona senator: as a freshman House representative, he laid out an articulate case for, and pleaded with Ronald Reagan to withdraw the Marines from their untenable political and military situation in Beirut. And now, years later, he he sees military intervention in Libya as our first option from the get-go?

But hey, some sage advice. I remember being up to my neck in alligators once, and was told to cheer up, that things could be worse. . .sure enough, I cheered-up and things indeed got worse. . .meaning after Gates retires we may only have our vice-president, Yosef bi Den to seek military and foreign policy counsel from.

Hell no I won't go - I've been!

I suspect that a team of rivals sounds much better when it's being written about in a book than when you're trying to manage them to get an effective policy together and executed upon. Thus, one is going to be tempted to simplify and streamline, giving you a team that isn't going to be very rivalrous. I think that's the outcome we are seeing.

recorded tapes of phone conversations he had with his advisers prior to escalating the Vietnam war and they are well worth listening to. The similarity to what seems to be motivating President Obama's thinking on Afghanistan is chilling. Even as early as 1964 Johnson knew that Vietnam was more about domestic than foreign policy. He said he wouldn't give a bucket of spit for all of Vietnam, most Americans know little about it and care even less. He did realize that Americans believe they have the biggest baddest military in world history and like being winners. If he backed away from a fight no matter how ill advised the Republicans would beat him over the head with it forever.

In our military jargon, we call such assaults a "preemptive first strike", The US military policy today does not preclude first strike by the United States in order to prevent a presumed attack from another side. That Ohlendorf argument was considered by three American judges at Nuremberg, and they sentenced him and twelve others to death by hanging. So it's very disappointing to find that my government today is prepared to do something for which we hanged Germans as war criminals.

"Our government has gone to great pains to be sure that no American will be tried by any international criminal court for the supreme crime of illegal war-making. In condemning others for that crime we also proclaimed that the law must apply equally to everyone. It is carved on the entrance to our Supreme Court that promises "Equal Justice Under Law." Why dos the US foul its own nest by failure to uphold the principles of Nuremberg which inspired the world?"

Nuremberg Prosecutor, Ben Ferencz

Mr. Bacon, our nation has been taken over by the monsters in the Pentagon and a cowardly press that lies for them and their blood money. They are no different than any other crinimal regime in history. We are fucked.

...to White House/NSC decision-making would indicate that Obama and his people go for the compromise, split-the-difference, 51 percent solution that will play well with the politicians and the home crowd. Caution and prudence are good for keeping us out of more messes like Libya, but probably prolong the agony once we are balls deep into a fiasco or debacle like Iraq or AFG.

Would be easy to argue that BO reacts, and his people are there to protect him and his political capital. Doubtful that he stands for much of anything besides managing whatever happens to come his way.

Congress and the Pentagon and pundits and grey beards and lobbyists do not lack for ideas and goals and wishes and schemes, so a a weak President and support crew works for them.

Moreover, Democrat Presidents seem to be at a disadvantage, since their patriotism and fitness for the Commander-in-Chief role are called into question even before they get elected. The Republicans have sunk from Eisenhower, who tried to cut down on the military's shenanigans, to Bush Junior who sucked a willing military into his idiotic and poorly executed shenanigans.

It will will be interesting to see where Mr. Crowley goes to work after the two minutes of hate has ended. Your comment on Mr. Ferencz is spot on. He is a man who honors truth and justice. If Mr. Ferencz made the same comments today as an employee of the government, he would destroyed by the friends of our host.