am glad we have a president who sees America that way. That argument cannot just be shrugged off, especially when confronting a dictator like Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. But, at the same time, I believe that it is naïve to think that we can be humanitarians only from the air — and now we just hand the situation off

ention, when necessary. She was among those who persuaded Mr. Obama to back a NATO air campaign in Libya to avert a slaughter of the rebels by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. But Mr. Obama drove the process, officials said, asking for formal briefings in the Situation Room and shorter updates during his daily intellige

ent was not letting them wage an effective fight against the Libyan-armed Tuareg rebels who streamed into northern Mali after the overthrow of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. But following the military coup, first the Tuareg rebels and then the Islamist militias easily took over Mali's desert north, a region the size of

of his biographers, Cristina Marcano, said Mr. Chavez had spoken of being influenced by "The Green Book," the three- volume political tract by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. Once in power, Mr. Chavez established ties with Colonel Qaddafi and other Middle Eastern leaders who similarly used oil resources to butt

not blocking the no-fly zone over Libya, but he feels burned by it — that we went from protecting civilians to toppling his ally and arms customer, Muammar el-Qaddafi. It's true. But what an ally! What a thing to regret! And, now, the more Putin throws his support behind the murderous dictatorship of Bashar al-As

foreign policy will be an advantage for him, particularly because of his record of pulling troops out of Iraq, helping topple the government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya, taking robust action against terrorists and authorizing the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. He is the "first real national security De

Libya, but he feels burned by EFTA_R1_00228265 EFTA01841729 it — that we went from protecting civilians to toppling his ally and arms customer, Muammar el-Qaddafi. It's true. But what an ally! What a thing to regret! And, now, the more Putin throws his support behind the murderous dictatorship of Bashar al- A

ed turmoil after the successful uprising there, Syria's opposition appears scattered. Well before NATO intervened in Libya, groups hostile to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi leveraged the huge chunk of eastern Libya they held around Benghazi into the attempt to claim the whole country. A unified focus on the rebellion s

s, retreating into the privacy of their homes. In the public space, there was now the cult of the rulers, the unbounded power of Saddam Hussein and Muammar el-Qaddafi and Hafez al-Assad in Syria and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia. The traditional restraints on power had been swept away, and no new social con

for nondemocratic regimes are always preferable to hard ones, even if the process takes some time. A moral argument can be made that monsters like Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya and Kim Jong-il in North Korea should be overthrown any way they can, as fast as we can, regardless of the risk of short-term chaos. But t

litical scientist. "The brutality of the Assad regime in Syria and the Saleh regime in Yemen is still being felt," he said. "But with the demise of Muammar el-Qaddafi, the light at the end of the tunnel is a lot less dint." Or, he added, Libya may yet follow Yemen to chaos. "Libya still has its chance of becoming