Obama at War with Left, Right and Himself

The Obama Administration is being attacked from the both the left and the right on its decision to intervene in Libya.

From the left: Michael Kinsley

:Wait a minute. How did this happen? A month or so ago, massive bombing of Libya was on no one's agenda. Libya's government was just as tyrannical and its leader was just as loony then as now.

From the right George Will:

The missile strikes that inaugurated America's latest attempt at regime change were launched 29 days before the 50th anniversary of another such -- the Bay of Pigs of April 17, 1961. Then, the hubris of US planners was proportional to their ignorance of everything relevant, from Cuban sentiment to Cuba's geography. The fiasco was a singularly feckless investment of US power.

Does practice make perfect? In today's episode, America has intervened in a civil war in a tribal society, the dynamics of which America does not understand. And America is supporting one faction, the nature of which it does not know.

In fact, on this President Obama is under attack from Candidate Obama, as pointed out by Mona Charen:

"I don't oppose all wars ... What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

Regarding the justifications for war with Iraq, state Sen. Obama was unpersuaded: "I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted U.N. inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. ... But ... Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors ..."