Bowing to criticism across the political spectrum, President Obama will try to clarify U.S. goals in Libya tonight in a speech to the nation. Expect him to argue that, however confusing our policy may seem, it’s working.

Aided by NATO airstrikes, Libya’s rebels have resumed the offensive and are driving westwards toward Tripoli. Meanwhile, an economic embargo is making it difficult for the regime to provide people under its control food, water, gas and other necessities.

Whether the rebels can defeat Moammar Qaddafi’s better-trained security forces remains to be seen. But there’s no question that international intervention has prevented Qaddafi from quashing the rebellion, indiscriminately slaughtering civilians, and carrying out his vows to exact merciless vengeance on regime opponents.

Obama’s critics, nonetheless, have a point. He has not spelled out with precision what our ultimate goal there is, or how we will achieve it.

The reason for this seeming incoherence, however, is not as mysterious as Obama’s critics make it out to be. Put simply, U.S. aims in Libya and those of the international community are not aligned. What America wants – and no doubt France and Britain as well – is Qaddafi’s ouster. But the United Nations doesn’t do regime change. Russia and China, with long histories of autocratic and repressive rule, are adamantly opposed to political interference in the sovereign affairs of other countries.

U.N. Resolution 1973 therefore authorized only a humanitarian intervention aimed at protecting civilians from attack. The problem, of course, is that humanitarian crises invariably have political roots, and the Libyan opposition will never be safe from retaliation until Qaddafi and his henchmen and mercenaries are gone.

With NATO airstrikes clearing the way for rebel advances, it’s clear that the humanitarian mission is something of a fiction, a fig-leaf for the coalition’s real aim, which is to hasten Qaddafi’s fall. Our European allies fear that their publics have little stomach for a long engagement in Libya. So the international coalition has taken sides in the Libyan revolt, and must now confront the reality that rebel offensives in Tripoli and other regime strongholds will put civilians at risk.

This is a strategically and morally sustainable position. In the long run, it’s the best way to minimize civilian deaths and free Libya from a loathsome tyrant. Yet the Obama administration has been less than forthcoming about its true aims, for fear that absolute candor will unravel the international consensus behind the Libyan intervention.

At the same time, the White House has been eager to toss the hot potato of leading the Libyan intervention to NATO. Yet its attempts to downgrade America’s role from lead actor to stagehand have failed to answer doubts about the operation shared by liberals and conservatives. On the contrary, they’ve made the administration look both weak and furtive.

Obama needs to do a better job tonight of acknowledging the tensions between U.S. and international policy towards Libya, and reaffirm his resolve to see Qaddafi go. But his critics also need to understand that Obama can’t simply issue unilateral ukases if America is to share the burden of intervening with others.

Armchair strategists demand that Obama spell out America’s policy with Euclidean precision. Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose, in The Washington Post, offers out an eminently logical set of criteria for intervention, in which Presidents clearly define mission and goals, select means to match the ends, develop plans for what happens when the fighting ends, and have backup contingencies in place when things don’t go as expected.

But military interventions, especially multilateral ones, unfold in the context of international politics. And international politics is just as illogical, imprecise, and unscientific as domestic politics. Sometimes, candor and coherence have to be sacrificed to achieve enough consensus to get traction against big problems. That’s why humanitarian or other kinds of interventions launched in the name of collective security today are likely to be messy affairs, to have limited and even muddled aims, and be prosecuted in a spirit of continuous improvisation rather than rigid adherence to war plans.

Rigorous rules of intervention are useful intellectual and strategic exercises. But ultimately what matters to Americans are results, not theory. They support wars – yes, even wars of choice like Panama, the 1991 Gulf War, and Bosnia and Kosovo – that entail manageable costs and are over quickly. Over time, they come to oppose those that drag on, cost too many lives and too much money, and begin failing a cost-benefit test of national interest.

Whatever President Obama says tonight to rally support for his policies, he should act in ways that ensure the endgame in Libya – Qaddafi’s fall – comes sooner rather than later.

UPDATE: We are re-posting this piece from Friday as events over the weekend continue to highlight the need for American attention on pro-democracy protests in Syria. Over the weekend, 12 people have reportedly died during demonstrations in the northern port city of Latakia–where the military has reportedly been deployed–and some 4,000 people gathered again in Daraa.

You may not have noticed between the new war in Libya and the nuclear crisis in Japan, but the latest Arab country to see popular protests is Syria. Unlike Egypt and Tunisia, Syria has been an opponent of the peace process and allied with Iran.

Yet, like President Mubarak and President Ben-Ali, President Assad is following what seems to be the traditional playbook in response to a week of intensifying and pitched protests, again making noises about reexamining the country’s decades-old emergency law barring free political expression. Unlike these gauzy allusions to “reform,” however there has been nothing vague about the soldiers and anti-terrorism units attacking Syrian citizens in the streets.

The Obama administration must do more to help Syrian democracy and human rights activists to expose this regime for what it is. The Administration should start by dispatching Ambassador Robert Ford to Daraa, where dozens were slaughtered in the streets this week by government security forces firing on crowds and attacking those rallying for freedom from Bashar al-Assad’s tyranny. From Daraa, Ambassador Ford should call for a full UN Security Council investigation into what happened during the recent protests. His mere presence can bring hope to those brave enough to stand up to Assad’s thugs. America owes them that much.

Not many more died in Egypt, where the armed forces never fired on crowds. Yet we’ve heard far stronger words from the White House about Egypt than we have about Syria thus far. A statement by the White House Spokesman was a start, but the President should speak out himself and up the ante.

The Assad regime should also be put on notice that interfering with the Ambassador in this context would vitiate the purpose of our renewed high-level presence in Syria. The entire point of sending Ambassador Ford to Damascus – a move welcomed by Syria – was to establish an American presence on the ground. It’s time to put it to use.

We can do more. Congress should enhance the Syria Accountability Act to account for Assad’s renewed crackdowns on dissidents, and the Treasury Department should sanction those responsible for attacks on the Syrian people. IAEA pressure on Syria’s illicit nuclear program, which bears increasing scrutiny in any event, should be ratcheted up. The censure of the United Nations should be brought to bear on the murder of Syrian citizens by their government. Syrian opposition and institution-building groups should be funded and supported by the U.S. and our Western Allies – all the better to create an alternative to Assad’s rancid regime. The benefits of weakening the Assad regime cannot be underestimated.

This regime plays a pivotal role in the arming of Hezbollah, a non-state military that has killed more Americans than any terrorist group except Al Qaeda. It is the host to eleven terrorist groups based in Damascus and for years its border was like a turnstile at an amusement park for terrorists heading to Iraq to kill American soldiers. And none of that takes into account violence and repression that Assad visits on his own people.

For decades the United States has been denigrated across the Middle East for our policies, not chiefly regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, but more fundamentally for our hypocrisy. President Obama has a historic opportunity to align our interests with our values in helping dissidents and democracy activists repressed by an unfriendly regime find their voice. We need to seize the opportunity, and stop looking this gift horse in the mouth.

This administration has gambled that communication with hostile regimes is preferable to stubborn silence, and that being on the ground is preferable to self-righteous absenteeism. Fair enough. Now is the time to talk advantage of the diplomatic presence we have in Syria. Ambassador Ford should head to Darra, and he should demand explanations.

Though it would be fair to say Obama administration has struggled to keep pace with the groundswell of popular protest from Morocco to Yemen, the White House’s rhetoric and actions have thus far enshrined it on the proverbial “right side of history.” That is, through the lens of historical scholarship, the president’s course of action in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya will be judged as just in the face of non-democratic and violent forces.

Then there’s Bahrain.

The small island nation — home to a non-democratic Sunni ruling family and allied with the U.S. as host to the Navy’s 5th Fleet — has had a steady stream of pro-democracy demonstrations since January. While paying lip service to Shi’ite Bahrainis’ grievances, last week the royals called in Saudi and Emirate military muscle to quash a popular uprising before it gained steam. Pearl Square — the protesters’ main gathering place — was shut down immediately after the foreign troops’ arrival; at least eight people have been killed and dozens are reported missing.

As it stands, the Obama administration runs a serious risk of ending up on the wrong side of history in Bahrain. Until the weekend, the administration had said and done comparatively much less than the multiple statements on Egypt, issuing just one quiet statement from a (relatively) lowly National Security Council spokesman. Secretary Clinton reiterated the original statement on Saturday, saying:

We have made clear that security alone cannot resolve the challenges facing Bahrain… Violence is not and cannot be the answer. A political process is. We have raised our concerns about the current measures directly with Bahraini officials and will continue to do so.

Fair enough — sounds good enough, right? But whereas statements regarding Tunisia and Egypt, as well as the UN resolution and subsequent military action on Libya outpaced events (if barely), the White House’s attention to Bahrain may be too little, too late.

Are the U.S. Navy base and Saudi/ Emirate support for the Libyan situation complicating factors in America’s flat-footed response? Of course. But rather than sitting on its hands, the White House would do well to channel former Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel’s mantra — never let a crisis go to waste — and use the opportunity to start reorienting American policy that corrects over 30 years of an inherently unstable Faustian bargain with Arab despots. I’ll pass on the specifics of “how” for now, but getting on the right side of history in Bahrain through tougher and earlier public diplomacy is a good start if the protest movement beats the odds and rekindles itself.

The Obama administration has tried to keep a low profile in the Libyan crisis. When the shooting starts, however, it’s hard for a superpower to avoid the limelight.

Having unleashed U.S. cruise missile and B-2 bomber attacks on Libya’s air defenses, the administration faces incoming criticism on all sides – from Arab leaders who are getting cold feet after having initially called for a no-fly zone, and from Republicans who want to know what America’s “endgame” is. Meanwhile, Muammar Gaddafi wasted no time playing the anti-American card, accusing the United States of scheming to steal Libya’s oil.

Most disappointing was the criticism from Amr Moussa, secretary general of the 22-nation Arab League. The League’s call for a no-fly zone only a week before was widely interpreted as a sign of political maturation; an acknowledgement that tyrants like Gaddafi pose a bigger threat to Arabs than U.S. “imperialism.” After the Libyan regime made what appeared to be spurious claims about civilian casualties, however, Moussa changed his tune: “What has happened in Libya differs from the goal of imposing a no-fly zone and what we want is the protection of civilians and not bombing other civilians.”

Continue reading at Real Clear World

Like a governor issuing an 11th hour stay of execution to a death row inmate, the United Nations has intervened dramatically in the Libyan crisis. Now the world has all the authority it needs to prevent a bloodbath in Libya, and in doing so revive the faltering momentum of the Arab political awakening.

The U.N.’s decisive action was doubly surprising. First because it happened at all; many observers—including me—figured either Russia or China would veto any resolution authorizing military intervention in Libya. Maybe Moscow and Beijing were swayed by the Arab League’s unprecedented endorsement of a no-fly zone, or by Moammar Qaddafi’s bloodcurdling and fully credible promises to obliterate regime opponents.

The second surprise is the sweeping scope of the Security Council resolution, which authorizes “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan citizens. That allows the international community to go beyond imposing a no-fly zone, which wouldn’t stop Qaddafi’s ground assault on rebel strongholds, to a “no drive” zone, which would.

In practice, “international community” means Europe and the United States, probably with some token support from Arab countries. In any case, this coalition needs to act swiftly to stop Qaddafi’s offensive in its tracks. At the same time, we should be arming and training the rebels, as the U.N. resolution also seems to permit, so that the Libyan people can finish the job of liberating themselves from a vicious tyrant.

Another striking aspect of the U.N. vote was that it was not engineered by Washington. The Obama administration was visibly ambivalent about a no-fly zone or anything else that might smack of U.S. unilateralism. It stayed in the background, letting France and Britain take the lead in pressing the Security Council to act.

Perhaps this was tactically adroit, in that a more aggressive U.S. stance might have evoked opposition not only from Russia and China, but also from abstainers like Brazil and India. But Obama’s aloof and passive stance didn’t exactly burnish his leadership credentials, and will undoubtedly fuel conservative criticisms that he is more inclined to apologize for American power than wield it with conviction to support freedom.

In any case, if followed up by decisive military action, the U.N. resolution is a brush-back pitch to Middle East tyrants contemplating using force against their own people. This would embolden freedom movements percolating in the region, though it could also pose awkward questions about Saudi Arabia’s dispatch of troops to help Bahrain stifle Shia demands for political voice and participation.

Looking beyond the Middle East, the U.N.’s action breathes new life into the venerable doctrine of collective security, and reinforces new theories that the international community has a “responsibility to protect” not just states from aggression by other states, but peoples within states who are brutalized by despotic rulers or by anarchic violence in places where there is no central authority.

This is a new and compelling principle of progressive internationalism. Obviously, it has to be applied with care, lest the United States get dragged into one conflict after another because no other country or combination of them can do the job. But U.S. progressives—including President Obama—shouldn’t be reticent in defending the principle.

Qaddafi’s hired mercenaries are closing in on the rebel stronghold in Benghazi. If they overrun the city, two things will almost certainly happen: Any hope for a democratic Libya will die (for now), and thousands of innocent bystanders — women and children among them — will perish as Qaddafi fights to his self-proclaimed “last drop of blood.”

Before Libya’s tyrant launches his final push, there’s news that the international community, including the United States, is preparing, albeit tardily, to act.  U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said today that “We are discussing very seriously and leading efforts in the Council around a range of actions that we believe could be effective in protecting civilians… The U.S. view is that we need to be prepared to contemplate steps that include, but perhaps go beyond, a no-fly zone.” [bolding mine]

In the most likely scenario, that would mean allied missile strikes at strategic military assets.

It’s clear that the West needs to change Qaddafi’s military calculation, in effect telling him, “advance on Benghazi and there will be consequences.” It appears to be more than just bluster designed to scare Qaddafi into a stalemate — Secretary Clinton has vowed a Security Council vote no later than today. Only a vote will separate those countries that stand with the oppressed from those who are content to tolerate military force used against those yearning for free expression.

This all begs the question: Progressives, are you comfortable with using military force — including airstrikes against strategic military targets — in Libya? Even when Qaddafi tries to pretend that he’s going to be a nice guy by giving the rebels a chance to surrender?

There are clear and compelling reasons to use force in this case, in concert with a progressive internationalist worldview, the belief that America can best defend itself by building a world safe for individual liberty and democracy.  The progressive internationalist now has little choice but to act militarily to stop the mass, indiscriminate killing of Libyans who hold those values.

Here’s why:

1. There will be an international mandate. This operation is hardly one of George W. Bush’s hamfisted “coalitions of the willing”. The key is to ensure legitimacy that avoids putting and American face on intervention.  The U.S. would be a participant, along with Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Conference, and the Gulf Cooperation Council who have all approved a no-fly zone at a minimum, and would very likely up the ante to endorsing a limited strike (which a NFZ implies anyway).

2. Major American allies like the U.K. and France have been stalwart supporters of action, and in concert with the U.S., likely bring along other major world powers.  While China and Russia remain hard sells, they’re not exactly democrats interested in this stuff anyway.

3. Protecting democratic movements is a core American national interest. Gen. Wesley Clark staked a dangerous claim in an op-ed that oil was the only core worth protecting, and that while humanitarian disasters were terrible, they were hardly worth getting your hands dirty.  Wrong. I’ll side with Anne Marie Slaughter, who tweeted, “Supporting accountable, open, rights-regarding governments in the Middle East = U.S. strategic interest. Will keep US safer than war in Afg.” And that, in addition to her piece in the NYT, clearly meant she would support military action.

4. The United Nation agreed that the international community has a “Responsibility to Protect” innocent civilians in times of “genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, as well as their incitement.” UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said it plainly: “We can save lives.”

5. The international community’s strategic goals are clear, if not bold. At this point, the consensus goal is to protect human life in the face of a humanitarian disaster. While members of the international community may have divergent goals — Secretary Clinton has said “he should go” — Qaddafi’s indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians who desire simple freedom of expression is enough to justify the use of at least minimum use of force to avert that outcome.

On the surface, Bahrain’s invitation to Saudi forces is really bad. A small but all-powerful ruling class is fearful that internal calls for democracy could reach the undesirable fervor of the masses’ brethren in Tunisia, Egypt, and in the extreme, Libya. When you dig deeper, it’s even worse: sidelined by 30 years of bankrupt policy in the Middle East, America’s relative ambiguity is providing a unique opportunity for Iran to — however absurdly — identify with its oppressed Shi’ite cousins across the Gulf.

In an effort to snuff out the Libyan option amid ever more vehement protest, the Bahraini monarchy has tried to forge an awkward policy. In near-perfect English, Bahraini crowned prince Saman Bin Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa sought to appease at least the Western governments watching him:

We know that a significant portion of the electoral base feels that their voice is unheard. And they want the respect due to them by — to be given to them by the opposition. They want to sit with them and talk to them. So, you know, at the end of the day, we’re all going to have to live in the same country together. And we’re all going to have to talk to each other.

… while calling in the Saudi military in a desperate and potentially disastrous attempt at crowd control.

Stuck in the middle is the U.S., ally to both kingdoms and free democratic expression. It’s telling, for example, that Washington’s call for “restraint on all sides” was delivered neither from the presidential bully pulpit or Foggy Bottom, but from a lowly National Security Council spokesman. America’s relative inaction is due more to thirty years of bankrupt policy across multiple presidential administrations; while that may provide the White House a plausible excuse, there are still consequences.

Shi’ite Iran is filling the void left by a handcuffed and silenced United States. It’s a shameless and disingenuous target of opportunity, but could be ultimately effective: as the pro-democracy Shi’ite majority in Bahrain look abroad for apparently reform-minded backers, they see Tehran, not Washington, unambiguously standing with them.

It’s downright scandalous that this statement came from Iran’s Foreign Ministry and not the U.S. State Department:

The presence of foreign forces and interference in Bahrain’s internal affairs is unacceptable and will further complicate the issue… People have some legitimate demands and they are expressing them peacefully. It should not be responded to violently … and we expect their demands be fulfilled through correct means.

But it did. The Iranian government’s hypocrisy could not be more blatant — a scam 2009 election returned Mahmoud Ahmedinejad to power but brought the masses into the streets for weeks of protests. Dissent was ultimately crushed by the same repressive spirit fueling Bahrain’s rulers, a sentiment wistfully cast aside when the opportunism beckons.

The only question in my mind is whether Bahrainis see through Tehran’s lies or grasp on to any semblance of international support they can muster. The White House should speak up — and act — before they have to choose.

One of the many tragedies of the Iraq War was that the Bush administration presented it as a humanitarian venture when in fact not a single established humanitarian organization supported the intervention. The International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch, for instance, both argued that the War could not been as a humanitarian venture.

Again we are seeing calls for some sort of humanitarian intervention, in Libya this time. From my former colleague Job Henning to columnist Charles Krauthammer, the U.S. is being called upon to arm the rebels, establish a no-fly zone, or something in between.

Since the humanitarian argument was used so cynically in Iraq in 2003, it’s worth checking in with what the humanitarian groups are actually saying this time around. The results are not what one might think.

Let’s start with the most aggressive: The Genocide Intervention Network has been the lead group calling for the “[e]stablishment of a no-fly zone by willing countries, with the express aim of preventing continued operation of Libyan military aircraft if attacks against civilians continue.” GIN’s position might seem counterintuitive given that nobody claims genocide is taking place in Libya, but the organization’s goal is to stop genocides before they begin. Once the genocide begins, time is already lost.

Only slightly less interventionist is the International Crisis Group. Notably, it says that “forceful measures” – sanctioned by the UN Security Council and the Arab League and African Union—might become necessary to stop the “full-blown civil war.” The ICG’s position is very different from its position on Iraq, when the organization’s president said in March 2003 that the situation in Iraq did not merit an invasion. Still, the ICG thinks “nothing should be allowed to preempt or preclude the urgent search for a political solution” in Libya. At this time, “Western calls for military intervention of one kind or another are perilous and potentially counter-productive.”

And yet, it is significant that ICG’s former president Gareth Evans—who was president in 2003—wrote in the Financial Times that with regards to Libya “it is the responsibility of the international community to provide [basic security], if necessary–should peaceful means be inadequate–by taking timely and decisive collective action through the United Nations Security Council.” ICG’s relative hawkishness on the issue is important, both because it is highly respected and rarely insistent on military solutions. The left-wing Nation magazine has been surprised and troubled by the International Crisis Group’s positions, for instance.

Now to the firmly anti-US-intervention organizations: Amnesty International welcomed news reports in late February of the African Union’s plans to send a mission to Libya. No mention has been made of NATO, UN, or US no-fly zones, however. For its part, Human Rights Watch has called for the regime in Libya to allow relief aid in and refugees out (good luck with that!), but has conspicuously avoided advocating outside military intervention. Unlike other NGOs, HRW does take positions on wars, and so its silence essentially means it is stalwartly against military action.

The latest news is that aid groups are having trouble delivering supplies inside Libya, unsurprisingly. Perhaps if that keeps up, more humanitarian NGOs will call for intervention inside that country. Until then, the scorecard shows mixed enthusiasm for military action among the actual humanitarians.

Ouch. Sorry about the pun in the title.

But it happens to be true. Little noticed was a potentially significant piece of news, as a representative of the Arab League told French Foreign Minister Alan Juppe that the League would, in fact, support a no-fly zone over Libya. On the surface, it seems a big deal: autocrats across the Middle East and North Africa are standing on the side of oppressed peoples in the face of their murderous leader.

In the search for international legitimacy, securing the Arab League’s endorsement, not to mention ones from the Organization of Islamic Conference and Gulf Cooperation Council, should go some distance, even if those organizations essentially draw on membership from the same states.

Then you ask yourself: Whoa. So WHY are Middle East leaders now standing with the masses? Strongmen throughout the region continue to resist protesters’ wishes, so why side with them on this?

Certainly, one reason is that Qaddafi definitively crossed a line into war. Strongmen the region over may be interested in maintaining a tight grip on power, but the protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, and Libya may have concretized the lengths to which the region’s unelected leaders are willing to go. The Mubaraks of the region will muffle press, stifle political organizations, restrict Western-sponsored NGOs, and arrest and beat their opponents, but as we’ve clearly seen from Tunis to Cairo, they are not willing to descend their countries into war to hold on to power.

The B-side could be more calculated. Are regional leaders looking to use their “solidarity” with the masses as a mechanism to defuse their own domestic opposition? Did they really have a choice? And what’s the benefit of opposing one anyway?

The next questions become increasingly uncomfortable: Now that there is a sense of Arab legitimacy behind a no-fly zone, what’s next?

First up is the question of whether it is the proper remedy for the cure. My colleague Will Marshall argued last week that a no-fly zone “would entail high political costs while yielding uncertain military returns.” And while Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings believed a no-fly zone was “eminently doable”, it “might not accomplish its goals of fending off Qadhafi’s brutes and foreign mercenaries, since their major weapons do not appear to be airplanes.”

Since those writings, there are mixed reports on the extent of pro-Qadhafi air raids. Report after report detail that he’s using them more extensively near the oil terminal at Ras Lanouf. Though Ivo Daalder, the American ambassador to NATO said there’s been a fall in air activity in recentdays, reiterating questions about a zone’s usefulness. Watch this space.

Britain and France are working to prepare a UN Security Council Resolution, and NATO will begin considering one on Thursday.  Both entities say that they are considering the no-fly zone as a contingency should the situation warrant it, and British Foreign Minister William Hague has insisted that there be a “clear, legal basis”, implying the value of an explicit UN resolution.  That continues to be a difficult proposition given resistance from the likes of China and Russia, but there is a glimmer of hope — China has left open the possibility of undefined “action beyond sanctions.”

Where does that leave us? More evaluation, essentially. If a no-fly zone proves to be an effective tool that advances the rebels’ cause, it remains critical that the United Nations grant it a mandate. It would most likely be conducted by NATO, but it would be helpful if at least one Arab nation participated to avoid giving it too much of a Western imprimatur.

As an unregenerate liberal interventionist, I believe America should aid Libyan rebels fighting to rid their country of Muammar Qaddafi.  But for all the attention a no fly zone has received, there are better ways to even the odds in this so far unequal contest.

The impulse to “do something” as Qaddafi’s planes and foreign mercenaries attack rebel-held towns is understandable. But at this point, imposing a no fly zone would entail high political costs while yielding uncertain military returns.

A key question, of course, is who would impose it? Given the likely opposition of Russia and China, the U.S. Security Council won’t authorize a no fly zone. Europe, as usual, is brimming with moral outrage but can’t muster the consensus to hand the job to NATO.

U.S. military authorities are scarcely enthusiastic. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Congress this week that imposing a no fly zone is a lot harder than it sounds. For one thing, it’s basically an act of war that requires that U.S. forces first attack and destroy Libya’s extensive air defense systems. For another, it would mean shifting aircraft and surveillance assets from the war in Afghanistan to the Mediterranean.

What really spooks U.S. officials is the spectacle of America, already engaged in two Middle East conflicts, launching yet another military attack on an Arab country. That could instantly change the Libyan narrative, shifting the world’s focus from ordinary Libyans’ valiant struggle for freedom to U.S. actions and motives. It could rekindle suspicions in the region that the United States is bent on imposing democracy on Muslim nations, undoing the Obama administration’s painstaking efforts to refurbish America’s image in the Middle East. In the worst case scenario, it could draw in jihadists and regional provocateurs hoping to lure the United States in a grinding and prolonged civil conflict.

Above all, Washington should avoid any step that might break the momentum of the popular upheavals now erupting across the Arab world. These bottom-up revolts hold out the best hope for democratic change that the people of the Middle East can believe in.

The best outcome for all concerned, of course, would be for the Libyan rebels to topple Qaddafi by themselves, with little or no outside help. That may not be in the cards.

The rebels, a mixture of lightly armed but highly motivated civilians and military defectors, so far seem to have stood up well to Qaddafi’s professional security forces and mercenaries. Take that assessment with a grain of salt, however, as this piece in the Guardian argues that much of the international narrative may be skewed by rebel sources. While the regime has lost control of eastern Libya, few observers believe that rebel forces can crack Qaddafi’s redoubt in Tripoli and the west, where he also enjoys support from his tribe.

A military stalemate thus may be the likeliest scenario. Since the real fighting is on the ground, a no fly zone might not have much impact. Says Jeffrey White, a military analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies:

Most of the attention so far has been on establishing no-fly zones, but these may be inadequate to deal with Qadhafi’s remaining forces. The regime’s key instruments are ground units, so no-drive zones or airstrikes would likely be needed to truly curtail its ability to move against the opposition.

So what should the United States and other leading powers do now? One answer is to intensify international and regional diplomacy aimed at isolating Qaddafi and his henchmen. Another is to get food and medical supplies to Libyan rebels and refugees. It’s also imperative to get a more accurate assessment of what’s really going on in Libya.

If the tide of battle shifts decisively in Qaddafi’s favor, the United States should be willing to provide the rebels with arms and intelligence. It is true that they are a disparate lot, that we know little about their aims once Qaddafi is gone (they may not know either), and that their ranks probably include Islamist groups.

Nonetheless, the rebels are determined to overthrow Qaddafi, which puts them clearly on the side of greater freedom and positive political change in Libya. And for now, that should be enough to merit America’s support.

The Middle East is a political outlier, the world’s least hospitable place for liberal democracy. But as popular demands for freedom spread virally across the region, they are illuminating a varied political landscape, not just monolithic tyranny.

Think of it as a continuum of despotism. On the “soft” end are Tunisia and Egypt, where longtime strongmen were ousted with surprising ease. Mostly nonviolent popular protests were sufficient to shove them into involuntary retirement.

On the “hard” end is Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi. Unlike Hosni Mubarak or Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the self-anointed “Brother Leader” has shown no compunction about massacring his own people to hold onto power. While rebels are fighting back valiantly, it could take a hard shove from the outside world to topple hardcore tyrants like Qaddafi.

In any case, the popular uprisings are sorting out where the region’s countries fall along the autocratic continuum. It’s also shedding light on the conditions that make some countries more receptive to political change than others.

A month ago, there didn’t seem to be anything particularly “soft” about Mubarak and Ben Ali. They were essentially dictators who ruled by decree, clamped down hard on political opponents, routinely violated basic human rights, including torturing prisoners, and tolerated pervasive corruption and cronyism.

Yet, to invoke Jeanne Kirpatrick’s famous Cold War-era dichotomy, they were authoritarians rather than totalitarians. They depended on the tacit support of respected national institutions like the army, as well as governing and economic elites who preferred “stability” to the hazards of open political competition. When the uprisings made it clear that the heretofore voiceless masses had turned against the rulers, that support quickly evaporated and they had little choice but to step down.

In contrast, the megalomaniacal Qaddafi has ruled absolutely for 42 years. Rather than use Libya’s oil and gas wealth to develop and modernize the country’s economy, he funneled much of it into overseas intrigues, including several vicious civil conflicts in Africa. Libya remains a highly tribal society where national institutions (including the army), private markets and civil society – key building blocks for democracy – are weak.

In general, America’s friends and allies in the Middle East are mostly grouped toward the soft end of the despotic continuum, while our adversaries congregate at the hard end. This should surprise no one except for foreign policy “realists,” who reject the idea that the internal political structures of countries have any effect on their conduct abroad. Yet it can hardly be a coincidence that the least open societies and most illiberal regimes in the region – Libya, Syria, Iran, and Iraq before 2003 – are the most likely to foment terrorism, chase after nuclear weapons, reject Israel’s existence, and brutally oppress their own people.

That Syria hasn’t seen much unrest is surely related to the fact that it’s a thoroughly nasty police state run by hereditary dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose father, Hafez al-Assad, leveled the rebellious city of Hama in 1982, at the cost of over 17,000 lives. Iran’s Green Movement has managed a few small protests in solidarity with the Arab revolt, but has been mostly kept under wraps by the Islamic Republic’s thuggish security organs.

With the exception of Bahrain, the region’s monarchies also have dodged the revolutionary bullet – so far. Arab kings evidently enjoy a greater degree of legitimacy and popular acceptance than secular strongmen. King Abdullah II of Jordan and King Mohammed V of Morocco have proven adept at creating at least a façade of parliamentary rule and at displacing popular anger onto governments they can dismiss from time to time to appease public wrath. Nonetheless, Washington should nudge such “liberal autocracies” to go beyond cosmetic reforms, lest they be engulfed by the rising revolutionary tide.

The country that really has U.S. policy-makers holding their breath, of course, is Saudi Arabia. It falls somewhere in the middle of the autocratic continuum. On the one hand, they’ve been U.S. allies since FDR’s day, sit atop oil reserves vital to America’s auto-centric culture and share our interest in destroying al Qaeda. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia is a run by a deeply illiberal monarchy that enforces Sharia law, uses its oil wealth to export Wahabbist fundamentalism, and relegates women to second-class status. The appearance of a serious pro-democracy movement there would force Americans to face these contradictions and rethink our close ties with the ruling family.

The Middle East’s variegated political landscape offers grounds for measured hope about prospects for liberal democracy. Political and economic freedom will likely advance fitfully and partially in some places, hardly at all in others. There will be slippage and backsliding. But there’s a striking opportunity for the United States to nudge its friends and allies further toward the “soft” end of the despotic continuum, and eventually off it altogether.

While a revolutionary wave in the Middle East has captivated most of our attention recently, the Korean peninsula remains volatile. In recent months, North Korea has launched two unprovoked attacks, and questions remain about the best way to diffuse the tension, especially with China acting as an enabler.

Yesterday, the Progressive Policy Institute, in conjunction with the University of California Washington Center, held a panel discussion on “Defusing Tensions on the Korean Peninsula: What America—and China—Should Do.”

The event featured: The Honorable Kurt Campbell, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Scott Snyder, Director, Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation; Karin Lee, Executive Director, The National Committee on North Korea; and Gordon Flake, Executive Director, The Mansfield Foundation. PPI’s Jim Arkedis moderated.

Sec. Campbell’s remarks were off the record (so I can’t report on them), but a lively discussion followed.

Flake kicked off the conversation with a blunt assessment of the obstacles of getting back to the negotiating table, arguing it’s hard to start a discussion when North Korea is beginning from such a bellicose stance.

“The fundamental problem is that if we want to get back to the negotiating track, we can’t enter formal negotiations as long as North Korea continues to assert that it’s a nuclear power and wants to be recognized as a nuclear power,” said Flake. “The question is: how do you get North Korea to change its mind and its position?”

Flake went on to argue that China had to play a major role. But while China and the U.S. used to have a good working relationship, that’s fallen off lately. Flake tried to see things from China’s perspective: “In my mind, China has always had three lousy options: no war, no collapse, and no nukes…In the last year and a half, there’s been a shift. China prioritized no collapse over no war and no nukes, and China came to the position that to do that they were going to back North Korea more openly.”

Flake criticized China for enabling North Korea by “shielding North Korea from the consequences of its actions.” He accused China of blocking investigations, ignoring information, and simply not raising issues.

Karin Lee followed by saying that in light of recent developments, she was almost nostalgic for the six-party talks. “At least the six-party talks put us in a position where China was invested in getting North Korea to do something as opposed to not to do something, and China was much better at getting North Korea to do things that not to do things”

Snyder worried that the U.S. was being torn between working with its traditional allies of Japan and South Korea and working with the more prickly but increasingly important China.

“The issue that is particularly challenging is do people perceive the U.S. as looking at North Korea through the lens of South Korea or through the lens of china,” said Snyder. South Korea is very nervous as to what happens. But the challenge is that we have to manage the tensions and interact with China, and in contrast to the situation in the past where U.S. hegemony guaranteed security, this puts tensions on the management of alliances.”

Snyder also noted that the fact that Chinese president Hu is at the end of his regime also poses some challenges.

But should the U.S. resume talks, as Sen. Kerry recently suggested?

“One trope the administration puts out is that they don’t want to reward them with talks,” said Lee. “But talks are not a reward. Talks are diplomacy.”

Flake, however, argued that until North Korea reiterates the commitment to de-nuclearization agreed on in during the last round of six-party talks, there’s no point. “We want to see some indication of serious intent and purpose,” he said. “That would at least open the groundwork.”

Snyder put it more colorfully: “In response to Obama’s invitation to engage with countries that unclenched their fist, North Koreans gave us the finger. So there should be low expectations”

On whether the Chinese can change their tune on being a little tougher on North Korea, Snyder offered some hope. “The Chinese would like to see North Korea follow in their model, but the Chinese are tired of leading the horse to water. They’re trying to make it drink. So we might be able to engage on how do we extend economic governance.”

Lee agreed: “We should say, you’re trying to get the horse to drink, and it’s not working, so how can we work with you to get the horse to drink?”

Certainly, it won’t be easy. And Snyder ended the panel on a pessimistic note: “The key issue is that North Korea has defined itself as a guerrilla state outside the international system.”