Forget the Benghazi circus; the broader Libya question is the one that matters. It reflects on Clinton’s ideology and judgment, and it has implications for future military interventions abroad–after all, there are plenty of people who think that Libya should be used as a template for Syria.
The issue needs to be broken down into a number of questions, posed chronologically:
1. Was it a mistake to respond militarily to Qaddafi’s threat to massacre his opponents? It is important to remember that the impetus for the intervention came from France and the UK, not from us. Realistically, could we have refused assistance to our allies, and so facilitated the massacre of civilians by a man with so much blood on his hands, including ours? In some ways, that would have been worse than Suez. I don’t see it.
2. Was it a mistake to change the nature of the mission to an effort to impose regime change? Your first inclination is to say yes, but what was the alternative? You can imagine trying to mediate an agreement with the government, but could you reasonably expect to make a lasting power sharing deal with a man like Qaddafi? I don’t think so. The lesson here is that purely humanitarian efforts inevitably become exercises in regime change when the existing regime is incapable of muting its behavior or sharing power.
3. Could an acceptable political solution have been imposed on the parties immediately after the fall of the government? It was tried. The problem was that there were too many groups running around with too many guns to find a solution. My best guess is that a quick political settlement was only possible with an occupation, and that was never in the cards. Now, the process is going to be slow and painful.
There are lessons here even for purely humanitarian interventions. As for the ultimate question, I would have to say that if history stopped today, both the Libyans and the West would have been better off leaving Qaddafi in power, but the entire story hasn’t been written yet, and the situation is more hopeful today than it was six months ago. It is possible that when all is said and done, we will view the intervention as a success. Or not. We’ll see.