Wanted: A Libya prenup?

Tom Ricks says he's been getting notes from military officers "demanding clarity of goals and stated strategic purposes" for the intervention in Libya. That puzzles him.

"The nature of war is ambiguity and uncertainty. I worry that such demands are really a fancy form of shirking," he writes. Gee, Ricks wondered, how would these same complainers and hand-wringers draw up a pre-nuptial with a prospective spouse?

Extrapolating, here's his guess:

(1) How long the marriage is going to last, with a clear exit strategy of how it ends -- divorce, death, or other. (2) Detailed discussions of roles and responsibilities, including how much notice must be given to the spouse if an extramarital affair is to be undertaken. (3) Description of the marriage's integration into the larger community. (4) Statement of how much time and emotion is to be devoted to the enterprise.

Ha! Nicely done.