Analysts at BetUS posted the following odds on Gaddafi:

Will he be forced to leave power:

Yes 1/8
No 4/1

By When:

March 3/1
April 5/2
May 7/4
June 9/5
July 2/1
August or Later 7/2

Will he be forcibly overthrown:

Yes 1/4
No 5/2

Will Gaddafi be ousted/step down as Leader by December 31, 2011:

Yes 1/2
No 3/2

Like going to see in a storm ; wise heads advise against it, you risk life, likely damage the vessel, catch nothing, and it’s hard to regain land.

How many civilians were killed when the US marines overthrew Fallujah? Close to zero because the city was surrounded and civilians were given a deadline to evacuate.

So, Obama should get around to releasing frozen funds to the National Trasitional Council. The rebels should be dominantly armed and trained. And Surti (Gadaffi's home town) should be "Fallujized".

This could be followed by superiorly arming the people of those western Libyan cities that briefly had their independence from Gadaffi. Cities fallin in the west and so close to Tripoli would add to the narrative that the regime's days are numbered.

If his were to happen, Gadaffi's army would know that it was a matter of time before the regime falls. Better to be on the winning side. If few civilians were to die in Surti, then the world wouldn't pressurize the rebels to stop befor victory was achieved. Finally, if it could be shown that rebels, with outside assistance, could overthrow their dictatorial regimes without massive civilian casualties, then the Arab Spring could proceed to completion in other countries and millions of Muslims would have the freedom which is their right.

Is it even possibe to supply and train a rebel force sufficiently to do what US marines did in Fallujah? Close air support could be provided by mercenary pilots. Just how long does it take to train someone to drive he Russian equivalent of an M-1 Abrams with anti-RPG systems? Rebels could be provided with secure communications, Blue Force Tracking, and US battle management. UAVs, and sniper detection, and teleoperated robots and dogs? could determine the location of regime fighters which could be taken out by air strikes. With such an imbalance of power, the rebels ought to be able to mop up.

"with advocates claiming that we prevented a larger bloodbath and skeptics arguing that there was never any risk of a genocide or even a deliberate mass killing and that our decision to intervene actually made things worse. "

The same argument could apply to iraq, with some people claiming that it saved lives overall, well never know with 100% certainty, but by looking at the situation logically its fair to assume that it did not.
By intervening benghazi and other areas of the east avoided the fate of mistrata, so logically it is again fair to assume that the intervention saved lives.

This is a great time for me to tell my naysayers: I told you so. If I have learned one thing from U.S. history, it is that military intervention, especially a half-assed one (looking at you Libya), almost NEVER works out well. Why do we keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again? Definition of insanity anyone?

Please.

Long before he established his credibility by predicting that Tunisia's unrest would never spread, Walt became an expert on Libyan politics and culture

http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2011/02/stephen-walt-gets-it-wrong-again.html
Likewise, comments such as

"Tens of thousands of people died (including some 4500 Americans), and millions of refugees had to flee their homes. And for what? Mostly, a significant improvement in Iran's influence and strategic position."

are embarrassing and more than a little misleading. The argument that you had to be a neocon to appreciate any of the changes (such as the gradual weakening of Arab autocracies) that the Iraq invasion caused is flat and unconvincing, but professor Walt knows that he is preaching to the choir with his readers.

Marc Lynch should apologize for advocating for this GCC-NATO war for regime change.

We Can’t Afford This Unlimited Government and Its Interventionist Foreign Policy

By intervening in the Israel-Muslim conflict, we created the conditions that started the American war with Muslim terrorists. Intervening in other countries always leads to war and enemies. Terrorism is the strategy of the powerless when they fight the powerful. The phase in this permanent war is that terrorists will detonate dirty or conventional nuclear bombs on the NATO countries and America. We have to stop the steps that are leading us to this end.

The terrorists have more time and supporters than we have money. To survive we have to stop all interventions in the world. Defend our borders and attack only targeted actual terrorists. A total divorce from foreign affairs and the world's problems will eventually cause the Muslims and other foreigners to focus on their own affairs and their problems with their enemies because they will see that America is out of their areas and that it's in their best interest to end terrorism against America to keep us out. This is the only way to end this permanent war before we enter the terminal stage of our economic and social cancer.

The Federal, State and local governments must reduce their size by 40% to fit actual taxes. There are not enough taxpayers to support this huge 3 level government of over 20 million people and an equal number of people that are employed by dependent government contractors. Taxes are too high already. Most taxpayers are struggling with increasing local property tax increases and the rising cost of living. In Rockland county, NY a wealthy suburb, 20% of the population depend on Medicaid a Federal and State welfare health insurance program that local New York counties must now pay a large share of using property taxes. Most the Medicaid recipients are illegal alien mothers and their American born “anchor babies”. The Federal government’s refusal to enforce immigration laws is causing the downfall of many American States and communities because of the tax burden of supporting millions of new aliens each year.

The United States is overpopulated and cannot afford to add millions of legal and illegal immigrants every year. 47% of American households are too poor to be legally obligated to pay income taxes. There are not enough corporations to support this size government and in any case their share of Federal income taxes is only 7% after all their tax breaks. Many including General Electric, pay no income taxes at all, and even take corporate government welfare subsidies.

Many of the CIA, military and government officials have quit and joined contractors that pay them more. These costly contractor employees are now back in their former government jobs at the taxpayer expense. The dependence of the military and CIA on contractors are a major drain of taxpayer money and a threat to our freedom. These people are mercenaries that depend on war to make profits and to live. They are not patriots serving their country; they are serving their greed for taxpayer money. 57% of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan are contractors. On May 15, 2011 there are 50,000 troops and 63,000 contractors in Iraq.

The “war on terror” has been contracted out and turned into a permanent business. Contractors are now making more profit than during World War 2 and other wars. Now they are not merely suppliers, they perform many military jobs that traditionally are performed by military personnel. This is a huge waste of taxpayer money and dangerous for national security because the contractors will never fight like soldiers when wars heat up. They can simply quit. The U.S. military relies on contractors to the point that they depend on them for vital military supplies including fuel, within war zones in Afghanistan. The contractors charge the U.S. military $457 a gallon for delivered fuels and pay the Taliban and other enemy forces $1,500 per truck as security protection payments. This is a disgrace and a fraud on taxpayers.

The war contractors are a powerful special interest group. An economist recently estimated that the true cost of the “war on terror” is $5 trillion. This is such an important business that the contractors will never willingly give it up. It is unlikely that they will willingly quit and return to low paid jobs like most of the American taxpayers that they prey on. The war contractors are the greatest national threat to America and we must terminate this business before we end up a failed state like the Soviet Union.

Instead of cutting the size of the government, there are plans to expropriate pension plan contributions that people were forced to pay. The cuts and elimination of Medicare and Social Security is a theft of the contributions that were forced on wage earners. The majority of Americans will be in deep poverty without these programs that were designed to serve the contributors. Instead this money will go to the bloated government and its dependent contractors.

By continuing to appoint men of the failed globalization ideology to positions of power, we are voting for our hangman at the gallows. We have to restore George Washington's constitutional republic that was designed to represent national interests, not just special interests.

This fiscal year the Federal government must beg and borrow $1.65 Trillion dollars out of a budget of $3.7 Trillion. This debt money should not be spent on war contractor profits and foreign affairs. Confront reality; The USA is the largest debtor in world history. The annual trade deficit (losses) is over $700 billion. Industry is only 9% of the economy. According to the official government statistics, 36% of males 16 to 64 years old are permanently out of the labor force and don't count.

There is no global market for American products. The total value of American exports is only $1.5 trillion a year and most of these are not manufactured products. The national current account balance (profit-loss) is more than a negative $700 billion. Globalization is draining the wealth out of America and the European “free trade” countries that practice this false globalist ideology.

We need to re-industrialize to become financially and politically independent from the global corporations and special interests. America has to nation build to restore its prosperity. 47% of American households are too poor to be legally obligated to pay income taxes. American owned companies cannot compete with imported global corporate products made with cheap labor. We cannot survive competing with Chinese that earn $200 a month.

Focus on our own problems, end globalization, mass immigration and re-industrialize with free enterprise competitive American owned companies before we become another failed state. Stop voting for the two political parties that ruined America. Choose independent politicians and change them when they sell out to the special interest groups. Constitutional government must represent national interests that include corporations, the rich, the middle class and the poor.

Roman Gil
http://roman-gil1.blogspot.com

Stephen Walt makes some good points here.
But one point scares me a bit. He dismisses the Libyan leadership right off the bat in a one-sided way. I do not claim to be an expert on Libya. But I do know that it is has the highest score on the UN's Human Development Index in all of Africa. And it shares with Tunisia the second highest literacy rate in all of Africa.

Human Rights cannot be the only parameter on which we judge a society. If a man or woman cannot read and live in dire poverty, what kind of freedom can they have? And Human Rights is a very malleable concept, often an anecdotal matter in the hands of propagandists, not easily quantified, and easy to manipulate to suit other and often darker motives.

The fact is that once a state or regime is a declared or undeclared enemy of the US, nothing but demonization of that state is permitted in polite company. This not only is a mark of intellectual cowardice, but it is extremely dangerous and opens the door to conflict and War.
John V. Walsh

Look, much like the Balkans, this is an attempt at "feel good" regime change without the fallout from a rogue state like North Korea or Iran. If the US gets off without much of a scratch, then the entire interventionist crowd of neocons, realists, and "liberals" will be pushing for more such adventures. It truly makes you wonder who is in charge of the US government? (And no, this isn't a "conspiracy" dig.)

I agree. Regardless of why we are there, presence or absence of plans, going ahead and asking Congress for authorization is a good idea. The republicans will need to make a stand on this issue, and it will have to be with the President. If not, even better – good clean excuse to wrap up US involvement. As longs as Reps don’t ask for spending cuts in return for authorization…

On the other hand, I understand why we need to gave our fingers in every pot. However, there is really not much there for us with this Libya thing. Lets get 'er done and focus on problems at home.

Will people please stop blaming it on the Left? Congress isn't made up of Democrats at the moment.

I see significant differences between Iraq andLibya. In Iraq we were not motivated by wishing to instill democracy where there had been a dictatorship (that excuse was invented some time afterward) but rather to get rid of a regime that Israel regarded as threatening. It was pushed by the Neocons mainly. In Libya were are motivated, at least I hope were are, by wishing to get rid of a dictator, particularly brutal, and allow a democracy to arise. Libya is part of the Arab Spring that started in Tunisia and that the US has greeted with confusion and ambiguity. In some cases supportive; in others not. Still getting rid of another Arab dictator should be positive for the Muslim world and thus I support the Libyan action while I did not support the Iraqi. The US should, of course, support Arab liberation 100% but strategic interests don't permit that, sadly enough.

The biggest problem with the ICC is that its decision to charge Colonel Gaddafi and two unnamed associates for crimes against humanity is it is selective. Colonel Gaddafi has been singled out to face charges where another country that are busy murdering and terrorizing their own citizens is being ignored.

That makes the court and the laws it states to uphold, unjust. An international law is either applied to everyone equally or to no one. It cannot be selective and decide who to try and who to ignore given the same or similar circumstances. A situation by which Colonel Gaddafi is singled out amongst other to face “justice” whilst the ICC ignores others doing the same makes the court immoral, unethical, biased, and totally political and questions the court’s integrity.

My question is why King Hamad Bin Isa Al Khalifa is not facing the same fate as Colonel Gaddafi as he has turned his armed forces against peaceful demonstrators with live bullets. These demonstrators unarmed and peaceful were demanding freedom of speech and thought, of establishing legitimate political parties of differing ideologues that would represent the aspirations of the people in a free and fairly elected parliament.

King Al Khalifa threw everything he could at his own citizens: tear gas, rubber bullets, and rocket propelled grenades. The people face arbitrary arrest without charge beaten, tortured and imprisoned without trial.
King Al Khalifa had a problem his army were not comfortable attacking and killing people that may be their relatives so he decided to turn to another country, Saudi Arabia, and invited King Abdullah to send in his army to take charge of the situation.

Saudi Arabia follow a very strict version of the Sunni Muslim religion called Whabbi and they believe Shiite Muslims to be the worst form of heretics. Bahrain is predominately Shiite Muslim (80%) and it was these Shiite that were giving a Sunni Muslim King a hard time the Saudi troops were not about to show an ounce of mercy.

King Al Khalifa knew that his people would be subject to a savagery without parallel and so it has been. Doctors and nurses have been killed for tending to the dead and wounded demonstrators. Shiite Mosques have been burnt to the ground, schools destroyed. King Khalifa proved himself considerably worse to his people than Gaddafi as the Saudi troops cared nothing for the hated Shiite Bahrainis.

It is amazing that the media have chosen to ignore this dirty genocide as if the facts have been censored. Secretary of State Clinton is so eager to have Gaddafi incarcerated as is Prime Minister Cameron of the UK, President Sarkozy of France, Chancellor Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy all are so eager to ensure justice is done for the Libyan people but they utter not one word about Bahrain as more and more of them die silently unreported daily at the hands of uncivilized foreigners.

How can the ICC justify what it is doing? Why are the major Western countries eerily silent about Bahrain? The answer is simple. OIL. Bahrain is a Saudi operation and no one dare say a word while a coward and a thief like King Abdullah kills Muslims daily and no one is prepared to help them.
Gaddafi deserves 100 life sentences for what he is doing to his people, but so does King Al Khalifa and King Abdullah but they know low people in high places and nothing will happen to them.

Walt, and several of the posters, offer arguments that on close inspection don't hold up:

1. We now know what the cost of the Iraq effort was and what its results were, but we didn't know these things before the effort began. This is absolutely central to understanding how policy is made and whether an effort made sense or not. Decisions to do, or not do, various things are based on the evidence available when the decision is made and not on any information that becomes available after the event. In Iraq, Bush concluded that overthrowing Saddam would be greeted with cheers from the Iraqi people and thus that the intervention would be brief and not overly costly. We know he was wrong, but that is based on what has happened in the years since the decision was made. Would he have proceded anyway knowing how it would come out? I would bet not, but unlike people like Walt, he had an obligation to make a decision and act. That Walt has turned out to be wrong about his assessment of Libya should teach him a little humility about the environment in which these decisions are made.

The Libyan incursion has even less of a rationale, but we'll probably get sucked into it because Obama's supporters cannot speak up against it without betraying the reality that Obama has no idea what he is doing in international affairs.

2. One poster asserts that the Congress isn't Democratic today, but that's only half right. The Republicans control the House and the Democrats control the Senate, which has a stronger role in international affairs. Holding them accountable makes sense, and not just because they have defended Obama's every misstep.

3. Roman Gil makes a lengthy economic argument, which I confess I skimmed rather than read, but the essence of our economic situation today is captured by the deficit in the current account, about two trillion a year. This represents the amount by which consumption in the US (households + corporate sector + government) exceeds what we actually produce. Over the long haul, no country will be allowed to overconsume for very long. To get our house in order, we need to cut consumption and/or boost net exports by a total of more than two trillion dollars a year, about a 15% reduction. Keep that in mind the next time some politician tries to sell you his latest entitlement program (Entitlements have grown from about 5% of total outlays in the 1960s to more than 60% currently)

4. Drooge is concerned about the lack of attention to Bahrain and I believe his explanation of it is approximately right. But there is an even better candidate for a Western response: Syria. We won't do anything there because of Israel, doing anything would reveal that our efforts to push Israel into unilateral concessions to Syria are entirely nonsense and in the process begin the unraveling of the Obama-Walt interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict and how to go about solving it.

Without straying too far off the main path, this appears to be another misadventure in the ME per the following:

No threat to us, platitudes about nurturing democracy in a foreign land, use of force that results in friendly and unfriendly deaths and taxes the Treasury further, finger pointing by both sides in the US when unsavory outcomes and variable ensue, and the usual denials in regards to hidden agendas and so on.

Good points by Walt about Obama going through Congress making this somewhat more palatable (at least in a Constitutional respect sense) and the similarities of no tangible end game.

The definition of insanity by one A. Einstein should be plastered all over the corridors of power.

Cheers

Thanks to Stephen M. Walt for asking a very important question; Is it time for Libya interventionists to admit, they were were wrong?

I would even go further. It is time for these war mongers to say sorry to Libyan people, let UN hold elections and handover power to those who win. Muslim countres like Turkey and Pakistan can help in this plan.

The interestng part of this story in Libya is that West does not give a hoot to democracy or human rights in the developing world. That we know from their past record. These four countries, which are pretending to be the champions of democracy, civil rights and rule of law, are the ones who have the most innocent blood on their hands.

Has anybody given it a thought that why did the west so quickly started bombing Libya? Was it to stop the advancing forces of the government to recapture Benghazi and other areas or to settle scores or topple the legitimate government of Libya? How come France, UK and USA are in the forefront of this war machine? Who has the greatest benefit from toppling Gaddafi? After all, the present Libya is a member of UN, has diplomatic and economic and commercial relations with 95% of the world. It is no secret that the UN, like NATO and Western Europe is nothing more than a tool for the American geo-political endgame that is now in its overreach. It wants to deny China and its growing influence in Libya and China's need for oil while making it look like a spontaneous uprising. But this uprising did not start in the capital as in Egypt but in the towns that are actually in or close to the oil rich area.

On 17th April, Alan J. Kuperman, professor of public affairs at the University of Texas and author of “The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention’’ and co-editor of “Gambling on Humanitarian Intervention”, wrote in Boston Globe;
“EVIDENCE IS now in that President Barack Obama grossly exaggerated the humanitarian threat to justify military action in Libya. The president claimed that intervention was necessary to prevent a “bloodbath’’ in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and last rebel stronghold. The best evidence that Khadafy did not plan genocide in Benghazi is that he did not perpetrate it in the other cities he had recaptured either fully or partially — including Zawiya, Misurata, and Ajdabiya, which together have a population greater than Benghazi. Human Rights Watch has also released data on Misurata, the next-biggest city in Libya and scene of protracted fighting, revealing that Moammar Khadafy is not deliberately massacring civilians but rather narrowly targeting the armed rebels who fight against his government.”

Now I want to ask these so-called defenders of Libyan people: If he was such a mad dictator, a monster and a devil as western media and officials are now painting him, how come up until December 2010, all the western leaders were hobnobbing with him, negotiated latest armament supply contracts worth tens of billions and even paid visits to Libya after he discarded his nuclear program and open the oil fields to western interests. Why was the west completely quite all these years and did not think or speak of human right and democracy in Libya? It is thought provoking that this is exactly the kind of labels, western media and governments used against Saddam Hussain before attacking him in 2003 and taking over the oil fields there. Why the United States removed Gaddafi's regime, after 27 years, from its list of states sponsoring terrorism. Speaking to the media after the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Berlin on 14th April, Hilary Clinton refused to answer such questions.

The sad reality is that no one in the developing world believes the West anymore, if they ever did. They have bitter memories of many double morals and hypocrisy being practiced, when western commercial and geo-political interests are at stake. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are two good examples, how the west pick and choose these favorite dictators. Was it not the great American president, Franklin Roosevelt who in response to complaints against some Latin American dictators, famously noted, "They may be sons of bitches, but they are our sons of bitches.”

"Rather, the key questions revolved around whether it was in our overall interest to do so and whether the benefits would be worth the costs. "

O for god's sake, can we finally abandon this sickening small mindedness? The days of the Roman Empire are finished. No, one does not have the right to act in one'sinterest overall, or otherwise, outside our own borders.

You have a right to act in your own interest only within your own borders.

You may have a duty or a sound reason to act outside your borders in other people's interest, but you still have to accept the blame if things go wrong.

Anyway, who is the "us' implied in "our"?

Right wing Americans plaintively ask "why does everybody hate us" and secretly wonder why everyone thinks they are stupid. The sentence I have quoted answers both questions.