Is there a role for a UN peacekeeping mission in Libya? It's not unfathomable to consider the rebels, even if armed and supported by NATO air power, are not capable of taking Tripoli and ousting Quaddafi. What would a true deal look like, and is it far fetched to imagine a Quaddafi ruled Eastern Libya and a Rebel controlled West (Free) Libya? UN "Blue Helmets" could operate along the border with a No Fly Zone in permanent effect. I understand the No Fly Zone in Iraq cost roughly one billion annually, however with international funding the cost could be shared. Similarly, a UN peacekeeper costs significantly less than any coalition soldier on the ground. The hardest pill to swallow would be Quaddafi's continued reign in Tripoli, and questions would remain about Libyan oil.

This country is going to sorely miss Bob Gates when he leaves office in the next few months. He understands the propensity of Americans usually blinded with hubris to jump head first into empty pools (Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan) and is doing what he can do to avoid another such debacle in Libya. Bob Gates is also a truth teller and taskmaster, who makes the partisan ideologues and complacent brass hats uncomfortable and that is no bad thing. Personally, I would like to see him hang around long enough to keep us from entanglement in Libya and to affect the beginnings of a serious drawdown in Afghanistan but alas I guess that’s not to be.

BRUCE CRUMLEY / Time / 31 Mar

"Karim Emile Bitar, a Middle East specialist for the Institution of International and Strategic Relations in Paris warns of unintended consequences. 'Up till now, uprisings in Arab countries have largely been spontaneous, national affairs that have ebbed and flowed, succeeded or failed without outside intervention, and as struggles between popular desire and resistance from regimes.' However, he says, 'should Libya become primarily associated with outside intervention and the death and destruction that produces, it could have a real quashing affect on the aspirations and ambitions that have been driving the Arab Spring up till now. And that - combined with continued unrest and chaos in Libya - could also have a very real impact on the search for new systems of government in Tunisia and Egypt."

Can anyone say with certainty that Kaddafi actually destroyed all his chemical weapons, and didn't squirrel away a small lethal deliverable stockpile some place?

Perhaps our guest intelligence analyst knows, or is overlooking the scenario that a mercurial dictator like Kaddafi, might, if he felt completely cornered by any U.S. ground assault, resort to such?

I am aware there were reports that although we monitored this under Bush the Younger, and were assured that the crazy colonel's WMD program was neutralized, evidence still surfaces from time-to-time, that we may have lost track of this to some degree or another?

This is a european matter. The French and Brit ground forces are more than capable of finishing off Gadaffi. The US can limit it's self to logistics and cheering on the sidelines.
This is the EU bordar moving south in to the Sahara and in the longer term beyond that. Africa beckons and these old colonial powers have such large domestic african populations no one else has the long term trajectory.

A token few will do, they know Colossus has committed itself and its precious credibility to this Libyan venture. Their people won't let them commit to much these ventures. But as Obama pointed out, we are "different", i.e. masochistic suckers. It makes no political sense for a European leader to commit resources to this venture. Look at Germany, they are perfectly happy to let the US deal with the situation, even though Germans benefit far more than Americans, cue the ex-Nazi crocodile tears.

Seems like a doomsday projection. I can't see the US pulling out of Afghanistan to go into Libya... alone. How politically and militarily disastrous would that be? Seems that we'd be erasing all the time, blood, and treasure spent in Afghanistan.

If the time to intervene in Libya ever was, it was in the opening stages. We took too long to react, don't know enough about the Libyan rebels to intervene, and have absolutely no desire to nation-build- especially since that Libya, unlike Afghanistan or Iraq, or the FYugo would essentially have no stable borders.

So... I guess I see a giant "No" to #1, a heavy amount of doubt as to the prevalence of #2. A massive "never" on 8 and 10 and a very big "unlikely to ever happen... ever" under 11, 12, 13.

There's no appetite to nation-build anywhere right now... especially unilaterally in the recession.

Seems like a doomsday projection. I can't see the US pulling out of Afghanistan to go into Libya... alone. How politically and militarily disastrous would that be? Seems that we'd be erasing all the time, blood, and treasure spent in Afghanistan.

If the time to intervene in Libya ever was, it was in the opening stages. We took too long to react, don't know enough about the Libyan rebels to intervene, and have absolutely no desire to nation-build- especially since that Libya, unlike Afghanistan or Iraq, or the FYugo would essentially have no stable borders.

So... I guess I see a giant "No" to #1, a heavy amount of doubt as to the prevalence of #2. A massive "never" on 8 and 10 and a very big "unlikely to ever happen... ever" under 11, 12, 13.

There's no appetite to nation-build anywhere right now... especially unilaterally in the recession.

Hmm.... from what I remember, Kosovo was supposed to be just an air campign as well. Until we started moving ground troops into Albania and Macedonia, the Serbs knew they could wait us out.

How soon we forget the lessons of the past... that said, I am NOT supporting the use of ground troops in Libya, I am just emphasizing just how collosally (sp?) stupid we are for getting involved in this one.

If we think Iraq was a "Fiasco", what's the best word for this war? Ignorance? Arrogance?

Still packing bags for OEF... waiting for mission change to North Africa.