Pointed criticism with élan

Listen up, second-guessers and sundry doomsayers: If you're going to effectively question the intervention in Libya, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat provides a pitch-perfect clinic on how to do it properly.

To wit:

"The Obama administration has delivered a clinic in the liberal way of war. [...] It turns out the president was willing to commit America to intervention all along. He just wanted to make sure we were doing it in the most multilateral, least cowboyish fashion imaginable. That much his administration has achieved."

"But there are major problems with this approach to war as well. Because liberal wars depend on constant consensus-building within the (so-called) international community, they tend to be fought by committee, at a glacial pace, and with a caution that shades into tactical incompetence. And because their connection to the national interest is often tangential at best, they’re often fought with one hand behind our back and an eye on the exits, rather than with the full commitment that victory can require."

And as Douthat rightly notes, "these problems dogged American foreign policy throughout the 1990s." Mr. President, this is smart criticism that's absolutely worth reading and taking to heart, sir.