LIBYA UPDATE – AT 11:58 P.M. ET:  There is a haze over news from Libya.  We know there is fighting going on, we know there is diplomatic activity, but we're not sure of exactly what is happening or whether positions taken by various nations are shifting.

Within Libya there is news of a provisional council being established in rebel-held areas.  The council is the first political coming together of dissident elements.  But we're not sure how much strength it has, exactly whom it represents, or whether the Libyan people accept it.

Outside Libya, Venezuelan buffoon-in-chief Hugo Chavez attempted to intervene to help his friend Qaddafi by offering to set up negotiations between the Libyan dictator and the opposition, but the opposition quickly, and correctly, rejected the idea. 

For Americans, the key question is what will Obama do.  Secretaries Gates and Clinton have made it clear that we are very reluctant to intervene militarily, especially since, as Clinton points out, we aren't exactly sure who the opposition is.  Obama certainly doesn't want to run for office next year having pulled a Jimmah Carter, and pushed one dictator out, as Carter did in Iran, simply to find a worse one take his place.

But the president seems to be moving closer to considering some military role, if Libya grows into a humanitarian disaster.   From WaPo:

President Obama said Thursday that he had ordered plans giving the U.S. military "full capacity to act, potentially rapidly," in Libya if the situation there deteriorates.

"I don't want us hamstrung," Obama said. He cited the possibility of a humanitarian crisis, or "a situation in which defenseless civilians were finding themselves trapped and in great danger," or "a stalemate that over time could be bloody" if Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi continues to resist international demands that he step down.

Gaddafi "has lost legitimacy to lead, and he must leave," the president said.

COMMENT:  Pretty good words from Obama, but essentially toothless right now.  The great Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins was on CNN tonight, and he quoted a line from Lyndon Johnson:  "Don't tell a man to go to hell unless you're prepared to send him there."  Johnson was rewriting the great line, from Emerson, that if you strike at the king, you must kill him. 

American policy is evolving.  It is reactive right now, reacting to developments in Libya itself.  This whole situation can be over in days, but can stretch to weeks or even months.

March 3, 2011