The optimism of BBC’s Mark Mardell notwithstanding, I believe French foreign minister Alain Juppé’s concession that “the moment has passed” for NATO to successfully intervene in Libya is correct.
I examine why this has come to pass in my New Atlanticist post “Libya Clock Running Out.” The core of the argument:
[T]he fact of the matter is that the pro-intervention advocates simply have not made their case that a no-fly zone would achieve fruitful aims. The inertia was with those like former SACEUR Wesley Clark, who argued that America had no vital interests at stake in the Libyan civil war and therefore failed the test of complying with the Weinberger Doctrine.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, who recently stepped down as Director of Policy Planning at the State Department to return to the Princeton faculty, tried valiantly to turn the tide in a Sunday New York Times op-ed. But, ultimately, the arguments amounted to a huge bet that everything would go right and that the pay-off would be massive: “a new beginning of accountable governments that can provide services and opportunities for their citizens in ways that could dramatically decrease support for terrorist groups and violent extremism.” Those are some long odds, indeed.
Much more at the link.
