A Fool's Errand: Installing Democracy in the Middle East

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I was opposed to Obama's intervention in Libya and wrote several articles to that effect.  I predicted that our intervention would come back to bite us.

On March 16, 2011, in a post called Should the US Intervene in Libya?  I wrote:

I had a long discussion with another reader over at The Other McCain about the wisdom of intervening in the civil war in Libya. I am against intervention. After years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, I see no compelling reason to intervene -- absolutely not with boots on the ground, and not even with military or humanitarian aid to the rebels. Why should we help people who hate our guts? The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

 On March 21, 2011, in a post titled Drudge:  Doubts Mount on Libya War, I stated:

...I have been against the intervention in Libya from the start, and for these reasons:
1. It isn't our fight. I don't see that there is anything to gain for American interests.
2. We don't know who the players are or what they represent. We don't know if the rebels are better, the same or worse than the dictator they seek to overthrow. Talk about "democracy" is likely to just be propaganda and not a firm basis for our intervention.
3. We have no clear-cut role or mission. What exactly are we trying to accomplish there? How do we know when we're finished?
4. If the rebels cannot defeat Gaddafi by themselves, we will be pressured to commit troops. If we don't commit the troops and the rebels lose, Gaddafi will be out for revenge and a large massacre of the rebels will follow (like what happened following the first Iraq war when we abandoned those who had relied on us).
5. If the rebels cannot win on their own and we do not commit troops, the rebels will be defeated and it will be a major propaganda coup for Gaddafi and militant Islam. They can brag that they defeated a western-backed force.
6. If we do commit troops, there will be more American deaths and billions more spent on war. Libya isn't worth the price.

In short, we have very little to gain and a lot to lose. I am all for a long-term plan for disempowering militant Islam (pardon the redundancy), for isolating Muslim nations from the west and taking away their economic power (through energy independence), and for separating the civilized world from the barbaric, so the latter cannot harm us further. This plan would probably include military action in certain circumstances, but we should choose our fights carefully. The Libyan intervention is not one of these.

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