Wonky Pundit
USMB's Silent Snowden
Answer to the poll's question:
Start with option 3. If it fails, use option 2 (replace NATO with UN).
Part of the problem is leaving NATO forces aka our allies in the lurch if we pull out. But the action in Lybia was via U.N. Resolution:
So why do you want us to stay in Lybia? Were you for us staying in Iraq?
For Libya, a few reasons:
1) If Gaddafi hangs on, he's going to be a LOT more eager to train more terrorists to send to Europe and the States in revenge.
2) It would be a bad foreign policy move to allow the Libyans (and other arabs now sympathetic to them) to believe that the US is happy to abandon them on a whim.
3) Let's face it: Europe depends on those oil wells fairly heavily.
As for Iraq, I was against the 2003 operation, but after that I believed - and still do - that some international presence has to be there until the political situation is stable again.