My apparent "Marc Lynch"

To any of you who have read my last two blog posts. You may be confused. For I, apparently, have pulled a "Marc Lynch," which in this case goes from overtly supporting intervention in Libya to taking a more measured stance on the situation. For Marc Lynch, this shift is witnessed on his blog for Foreign Policy, Abu Aardvark's Middle East Blog, from this post to this post. It is only right that I concede that I too have made an ideological shift to a more tempered response. Given that since my last post, the United Nations Security Council has voted in favor of a No Fly Zone or a No Drive Zone, depending on how you define, I now must defend my shift away from liberal interventionism.

I will admit, as Stephen Walt contends, there are many similarities to the decision-making process that I underwent and the "gut instincts" aspects of decision-making under the George W. Bush Administration. Initially, I was angry at Col. Muammar al-Qaddaffi's brutal retaliation against the Libyan Rebel Forces and I hoped on the interventionist bandwagon. I, myself, am quite surprised by quick shift in the ideological stalemate in the Obama Administration towards intervention. The cool response, I advocated for, in my last post, was not headed.


Now that I have apologized for my ideological shift. I will go on to further justify why I made the shift away from intervention through the words of Stephen Walt:

More importantly, despite Obama's declaration that he would not send ground troops into Libya -- a statement made to assuage an overcommitted military, reassure a skeptical public, or both -- what is he going to do if the air assault doesn't work? What if Qaddafi hangs tough, which would hardly be surprising given the dearth of attractive alternatives that he's facing? What if his supporters see this as another case of illegitimate Western interferences, and continue to back him? What if he moves forces back into the cities he controls, blends them in with the local population, and dares us to bomb civilians? Will the United States and its allies continue to pummel Libya until he says uncle? Or will Obama and Sarkozy and Cameron then decide that now it's time for special forces, or even ground troops?  

And even if we are successful, what then? As in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, over forty years of Qaddafi's erratic and despotic rule have left Libya in very poor shape despite its oil wealth. Apart from some potentially fractious tribes, the country is almost completely lacking in effective national institutions. If Qaddafi goes we will own the place, and we will probably have to do something substantial to rebuild it lest it turn into an exporter of refugees, a breeding ground for criminals, or the sort of terrorist "safe haven" we're supposedly trying to prevent in Afghanistan.