And Libya goes on...

[Bob's World]

For the US, and for every great power, the challenge in such situations always comes down to one of this: How does one justify harsh action on the dictators locked out in the cold, while enjoying an after dinner cocktail with the dictators sitting around one's dinner table?

Currently the guys who are sitting at our table our getting a little nervous, as a couple of them just got dragged out of the room while we turned to the rest and said " you know, I never really did like that guy and I thought he would never leave. More wine?"

[Dayuhan]

For the US, and for every great power, the challenge in such situations always comes down to one of this: How does one justify harsh action on the dictators locked out in the cold, while enjoying an after dinner cocktail with the dictators sitting around one's dinner table?

Currently the guys who are sitting at our table our getting a little nervous, as a couple of them just got dragged out of the room while we turned to the rest and said " you know, I never really did like that guy and I thought he would never leave. More wine?"

Not really that difficult. The unspoken rule is that if you keep your ship under control we'll deal with you, but if you lose it you go to the sharks. The other dictators will drop the guy who loses control as fast as we do, maybe faster.

Nobody has any illusions about us liking these guys, or about them liking us, or each other. Liking has not a thing to do with any of it.

Of course as long as the rebels are winning all we have to do is sit back and let nature take its course. When it's not going that way there's the question of whether or not to actually intervene, and there are a whole lot of considerations there. How it will look to the dictators still on our side is not prominent among them.

I don't think any of the other guys in the club will miss Gadhafi at all, or would object if somebody stepped in and helped him to the door. They never liked him either.