Be that as it may, it’s quite something to see the White House briefing reporters that the President took these decisions quite so recklessly and without knowing, by his aides’ own admission, anything about much of what might happen in Libya. Some process! ~Alex Massie

Brooks’ defense of Obama’s decision is interesting, because in the same column in which he reports on the recklessness of the decision Brooks claims that it was also “thought-through.” Obama is bold, but also careful. Supporters are pleased that he has assembled a broad (but actually very narrow) coalition, but others among them are even more pleased that he intends to pursue a policy that most of that coalition opposes. Thanks to the confusion surrounding the war’s goals, war supporters don’t quite know how to defend the Libyan war. For some, the limits of the intervention are what make it wise, and others can rest assured that Obama and his advisors are not so foolish as to be constrained by those limits. Advocates of the “responsibility to protect” congratulate themselves on the humanitarian goals of the war and the international legality of the enterprise (while carefully ignoring all of the apparent violations of the resolution they are touting), and advocates of regime change content themselves with the knowledge that the administration isn’t going to be limited by anything so unimportant as the authorizing U.N. resolution that allowed them to launch the war in the first place.

If the war escalates, the former will be able to say later, “Well, of course, all I wanted to do was save Benghazi, but Obama and his people got out of control.” This will sound and be very much like the Iraq criticisms of liberal hawks after the invasion of Iraq had already begun. Then you heard things like, “I supported deposing Hussein, but not like this!” or “Invading Iraq is fine, but we need Security Council approval!” Competence became their watchword. Unprovoked invasions and occupations were fine, so long as they were run by competent people. For many of the liberal interventionists who opposed or turned against the Iraq war, their objections were overwhelmingly procedural. If the Libyan war turns into a stalemate-preserving action, the more aggressive supporters of the war will claim that they have been vindicated, saying, “This is why we should have made an all-out effort!” This will be comparable in spirit to those neoconservatives and “super-hawks” who claimed that the Bush administration’s failure in Iraq stemmed not from being too aggressive, but for being too restrained in its willingness to use force to crush insurgent resistance and attack Iraq’s neighbors.