There's growing criticism of the Obama administration, especially from conservatives, for not "doing something" in Libya, but I'm not sure exactly what he should do, and, in fact, I'm not convinced that he should do anything.
There've been calls for imposition of a "no-fly" zone to protect the rebels from Qaddafi's air force, but why should we get involved in that? When we established a no-fly zone in Iraq it was to protect the Kurdish people from being slaughtered from the air by Saddam after we had urged them to rise against him. Having failed to support them in their uprising we at least owed them the protection of air cover. We were also technically still in a state of war with Saddam after the first Persian Gulf war, and his use of his air force violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the cease-fire agreement. Moreover, Saddam was directly targeting women and children, killing them not only with rockets and machine gun fire but also with chemicals (that we had provided him during his decade long war with Iran).
Nothing like that is happening in Libya, at least as far as I've been able to glean from news reports. Qaddafi is using his planes against rebel forces, not to commit genocide, but to defeat the rebels. There are civilian casualties, to be sure, but many of those are coming from infantry and artillary fire. If Qaddafi starts to kill civilians with his ground troops should we then go in with ground troops of our own? If so, then what? What happens after we, at great cost, depose Qaddafi? Do we stay and build a democratic state like we've tried to do in Iraq? Can we afford that burden?
A "no-fly zone" is not antiseptic. If we impose one, hundreds of Libyans will die since we would have to attack their anti-aircraft and radar installations and probably their airfields.
I don't see where we have a justification for getting involved, or what national interest we have at stake in Libya. If Qaddafi turns his guns on his people as Saddam did on the Kurds then we have a humanitarian obligation to do what we can, perhaps, to protect them, but failing that we should just stay out of it and root, if we wish, for the rebels.
Some have suggested that the world's oil supply is at risk and that we should protect the oil fields from sabotage, but we get less than 3% of our oil from Libya. If oil is a concern then let China do something about it. They get a lot more of their petroleum from Libya than we do. Why should we expend blood and treasure to protect China's economy?
This is hard for me to say because I despise Qaddafi who was surely behind the Pan Am 103 bombing, but if we are going to punish Qaddafi for Lockerbie then we should say so and go after Qaddafi directly and not his military. Going after him for Lockerbie, however, would be extremely awkward since we largely absolved him of the crime after he renounced his nuclear weapons ambitions.
All things considered, unless Qaddafi unleashes his arms against the Libyan people, then I don't see what business we have getting into that fight other than, perhaps, in a non-combat support role for other Arab or African countries which may wish to come to the aid of the rebels.
Meanwhile, someone needs to ask the Sean Hannitys of the world, the next time they criticize the Obama administration for dithering on Libya, exactly what they propose he should do.
