I'm actually not all that gung-ho on U.S. military intervention, although the case is not just a matter of democracy promotion at this point. Gaddafi's now waging an all-out war on his own people. William Kristol echoes Niall Ferguson's point on Egypt a few weeks back, noting the utter bankruptcy of the Obama administration's foreign policy.
Progressives are up in arms about the possible use of force, which is a classic left-wing knee-jerk reaction to deployment of military power, no matter how limited. It's pretty shameful, especially as these tools claim Barack Hussein's doing a fabulous job with his comments on the crisis so far. Problem is, that's not going to be nearly enough, as William Kristol points out:
Perhaps progressives might wrap their tiny minds around
the call from Princeton's Anne-Marie Slaughter:The United States should immediately ask the Security Council to authorize a no-flight zone and make clear to Russia and China that if they block the resolution, the blood of the Libyan opposition will be on their hands. We should push them at least to abstain, and bring the issue to a vote as soon as possible. If we get a resolution, we should work with the Arab League to assemble an international coalition to impose the no-flight zone. If the Security Council fails to act, then we should recognize the opposition Libyan National Council as the legitimate government, as France has done, and work with the Arab League to give the council any assistance it requests.Slaughter's a genuine "liberal interventionist," while Kristol is perhaps today's most prominent neoconservative hawk on regime change in the Middle East. That their arguments are dovetailing like this, in such a compelling way, makes for an interesting smackdown against the lame antiwar peanut-brains.
RELATED: At Los Angeles Times, "Libyan rebels flee Port Brega as Kadafi's forces advance" (via Memeorandum).