Libya and the USA: Juan Cole/Mark Lynch - 1; Andrew Sullivan - 0

While what I read in the past two months suggested the slaughter possible in Misurata and Zintan (where it may still happen, see Washington Post, dynamic/interactive map) as much or more than Benghazi, that Mark Lynch argues was a key feature in President Obama's council in decided to act.  But  Lynch is convincing on the thinking that went on in the White House (the key paragraphs are below).  And the second paragraph, the importance of Al Jazeera to how this all plays out, is as important as the first:

• My conversations with administration officials, including but not limited to the one recounted by the indefatigable Laura Rozen¹, convinced me that they believed that a failure to act when and how they did would have led to a horrific slaughter in Benghazi and then across Libya.... The administration...preferr[ed] at first to use diplomatic means and economic sanctions to signal that Qaddafi's use of force would not help keep him in power. The military intervention came when those had failed, and when Qaddafi's forces were closing in on Benghazi and he was declaring his intention to exterminate them like rats.
• And my conversations with Arab activists and intellectuals, and my monitoring of Arab media and internet traffic, have convinced me that the intervention was both important and desirable. The administration understood, better than their critics, that Libya had become a litmus test for American credibility and intentions, with an Arab public riveted to al-Jazeera. ("Why Obama had to act in Libya," by Mark Lynch, Foreign Policy, March 29, 2011)

And explaining the USA's lack of response to the crackdown in Bahrain is going to be hard enough in the coming months. Embracing change on the streets of Cairo ("Pics from Tahrir anti-corruption march," by Issandr El Amrani, the Arabist, April 2, 2011), Tobruk, Daraa and Damascus, or Manama will not solve Israel/Palestine; nor will it bring peace to the Afghan/Pakistan border. But it will make Al Qaeda seem a bit like Cold Warriors: fighting last year's/last decade's issue. This is a political take on the situation. (For a military take, follow tweets of CJ Chivers.)