The Evolving Scorecard on Libya Paul R. Pillar

The Evolving Scorecard on Libya
Paul R. Pillar
October 9, 2013

Many episodes, or aspects of episodes, in American foreign policy quickly get pigeon-holed as successes or failures. The label gets stuck to the episode, as a frozen judgment from an earlier time, and then the episode gets repeatedly referred to in such terms. The Western intervention in Libya two years ago customarily gets labeled this way as a success. The basic facts underlying that judgment are that the intervention helped to topple a dictator who was widely loathed, and did so with minimal direct cost to a war-weary American public.http://nationalinterest.org/blog/paul-pillar/the-evolving-scorecard-libya-9217