Yesterday's UN Security Council vote authorizing a No-Fly Zone and more against Libya has brought the United States and its allies into another Middle Eastern war. The charge leveled by advocates of the war that Obama has been "dithering" is as silly as is the counter-argument that the West has been itching for an excuse to invade Libya to seize its oil. The administration clearly understands that military intervention in Libya is a terrible idea, and hoped for as long as possible that the Libyan opposition could prevail without outside military assistance. It only signed on to the intervention when it became clear that, as DNI James Clapper testifed to great public abuse, Qaddafi had tipped the balance and was likely to win. The prospect of Qaddafi surviving and taking his revenge on his people and the region is what forced the hand of the United States and the Security Council. 
 
 I'm conflicted about the intervention, torn between the anguished appeals from Libyans and Arabs desperate for support against Qaddafi and concerns about the many deep, unanswered and at this point largely unasked questions about what comes next -- whether Qaddafi survives or falls. Now, the hope has to be that the UN's resolution will quickly lead Qaddafi's regime to crumble and create the conditions for a rapid political process to change that regime without the actual use of military force. 
 
 The intervention is a high-stakes gamble. If it succeeds quickly, and Qaddafi's regime crumbles as key figures jump ship in the face of its certain demise, then it could reverse the flagging fortunes of the Arab uprisings. Like the first Security Council resolution on Libya, it could send a powerful message that the use of brutal repression makes regime survival less rather than more likely. It would put real meat on the bones of the "Responsibility to Protect" and help create a new international norm. And it could align the U.S. and the international community with al-Jazeera and the aspirations of the Arab protest movement. I have heard from many protest leaders from other Arab countries that success in Libya would galvanize their efforts, and failure might crush their hopes. 
 
 But if it does not succeed quickly, and the intervention degenerates into a long quagmire of air strikes, grinding street battles, and growing pressure for the introduction of outside ground forces, then the impact could be quite different. Despite the bracing scenes of Benghazi erupting into cheers at the news of the Resolution, Arab support for the intervention is not nearly as deep as it seems and will not likely survive an extended war. If Libyan civilians are killed in airstrikes, and especially if foreign troops enter Libyan territory, and images of Arabs killed by U.S. forces replace images of brave protestors battered by Qaddafi's forces on al-Jazeera, the narrative could change quickly into an Iraq-like rage against Western imperialism. What began as an indigenous peaceful Arab uprising against authoritarian rule could collapse into a spectacle of war and intervention. 
 
 The Libya intervention is also complicated by the trends in the rest of the region. There is currently a bloody crackdown going on in U.S.-backed Bahrain, with the support of Saudi Arabia and the GCC. The Yemeni regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh is currently carrying out some of its bloodiest repression yet. Will the Responsibility to Protect extend to Bahrain and Yemen? This is not a tangential point. One of the strongest reasons to intervene in Libya is the argument that the course of events there will influence the decisions of other despots about the use of force. If they realize that the international community will not allow the brutalization of their own people, and a robust new norm created, then intervention in Libya will pay off far beyond its borders. But will ignoring Bahrain and Yemen strangle that new norm in its crib? 
 
 On my flight to Beirut earlier this month, I read the new book by Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose, How Wars End. Rose warns that leaders should never go into a military intervention without thinking through the political endgame. Again and again, he warns, the United States has gone into wars focused on the urgency of the need for action without thinking through where it really wants and needs to go. War advocates prefer to focus on the urgency of action, usually minimizing the likely risks and costs of war, exaggerating the likely benefits, and discounting the viability of all non-military courses of action -- exactly the script on Libya the last few weeks. Thinking about the messy endgame would only complicate such advocacy, and so it gets set aside. 
 
 One might think that the disastrous post-war trajectories of Iraq and Afghanistan would have forever ended such an approach to military interventions, but here we are. Has anyone really seriously thought through the role the U.S. or international community might be expected to play should Qaddafi fall? Or what steps will follow should the No Fly Zone and indirect intervention not succeed in driving Qaddafi from power? No, there's no time for that... there never is. For now, I will be hoping, deeply and fervently, that the Libyan regime quickly crumbles in the face of the international community's actions. Reports that it has accepted the resolution and a ceasefire could provide the space for the kind of political settlement many of us have been advocating. Let's hope. ||||| President Barack Obama demanded Friday that Moammar Gadhafi halt all military attacks against civilians and said that if the Libyan leader did not stand down the United States would join in military action against him. 
 
 President Barack Obama leaves the podium after making a statement about Libya, Friday, March 18, 2011, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo) (Associated Press) 
 
 President Barack Obama makes a statement on Libya, Friday, March 18, 2011, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo) (Associated Press) 
 
 President Barack Obama makes a statement on Libya, Friday, March 18, 2011, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo) (Associated Press) 
 
 President Barack Obama makes a statement on Libya, Friday, March 18, 2011, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo) (Associated Press) 
 
 President Barack Obama makes a statement on Libya, Friday, March 18, 2011, in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo) (Associated Press) 
 
 Still, Obama also said the United States "is not going to deploy ground troops into Libya." 
 
 In a brief appearance at the White House, Obama said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would travel to Paris on Saturday to join in a meeting of allies called to discuss next steps in Libya, where Gadhafi has launched a brutal crackdown against rebels trying to end his 42-year reign. 
 
 Obama's remarks came less than 24 hours after the United Nations Security Council voted to authorize military action to prevent the killing of civilians by Libyan forces. 
 
 There should be no doubt about Gadhafi's intentions "because he has made them clear," Obama said. "Just yesterday, speaking of the city of Benghazi, a city of roughly 700,000, he threatened `we will have no mercy and no pity.' No mercy on his own citizens." 
 
 The president has been criticized by U.S. lawmakers and others for not moving more forcefully while Gadhafi has regrouped in recent days and taken the offensive against the rebels. Obama said the United States and other nations have imposed sanctions on Libya, frozen assets of the leader and delivered humanitarian supplies to bordering countries to help ease the plight of thousands fleeing the fighting. 
 
 "Now, once more, Moammar Gadhafi has a choice," Obama said, listing what he said were non-negotiable conditions laid out by the U.N. Security Council. 
 
 "If Gadhafi does not comply, the international community will impose consequences, and the resolution will be enforced through military action," Obama said. 
 
 Obama did not specify what responsibilities would fall to the United States if military action is carried out against Gadhafi, but officials have said previously that American forces would help enforce a no-fly zone to prevent the Libyan leader from using his air force to bomb civilians. 
 
 The president made no reference to a Libya's declaration of an immediate cease-fire on Friday _ a statement that a rebel spokesman said was fiction. 
 
 Instead, Obama listed a series of demands for Gadhafi, including the halting of all attacks against civilians, a stop to military action against Benghazi and other cities and permission for humanitarian supplies to reach the civilian population of the country. 
 
 "Let me be clear, these terms are not negotiable," he said. 
 
 "Our goal is focused, our cause is just, and our coalition is strong," the president said. 
 
 He emphasized that the United States was not acting alone but in concert with Britain, France and Arab countries he did not name. 
 
 "Change in the region will not and cannot be imposed by the United States or any foreign power. Ultimately, it will be driven by the people of the Arab world," he said. 
 
 The uprising against Gadhafi is only one of many struggles being played out in the region as long-time autocratic regimes come under pressure. Protests in Tunisia and Egypt have led to the ouster of long-time rulers, and there have been demonstrations in Yemen, Jordan and Bahrain. Protests erupted in at least three parts of Syria during the day Friday, according to state television and other source 
 
 Earlier, Clinton told reporters that Gadhafi must make "a very clear set of decisions" to halt violence against anti-government rebels. 
 
 Clinton said the U.S. had seen the reports of a cease-fire by the Libyan government, but she added that the American government was not going to be "impressed by words." She said the immediate objective of any intervention was to halt the violence against civilians, but insisted that the "final result of any negotiation would have to be the decision by Col. Gadhafi to leave." 
 
 The U.S. has ships and warplanes within striking distance of Libya, including submarines and surface ships armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles. If military action were to proceed, a first step likely would involve attacks on Libyan air defenses, including radar and surface-to-air missile sites along its Mediterranean coastline. That would allow aircraft enforcing a no-fly zone to maneuver with impunity. 
 
 The nearest U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, was far to the east, in the Arabian Sea supporting air operations in Afghanistan. The Pentagon gave no indication that substantial additional firepower was being moved toward Libya, even as it focused on providing humanitarian relief in stricken northern Japan. 
 
 Britain, France and NATO were holding emergency meetings Friday on using military force to enforce a no-fly zone. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance was "completing its planning to be ready to take appropriate action in support of the U.N. resolution as part of the broad international effort." 
 
 Officials announced that the leaders of Britain, France and Germany and the chiefs of the United Nations and Arab League would join other world leaders for an emergency summit on Libya in Paris on Saturday.
– Marc Lynch hopes "fervently" that the UN's decision on Libya causes Moammar Gadhafi's regime to fall quickly. It could "reverse the flagging fortunes of the Arab uprisings" and put both the US and international community on the right side of the protest movement, he writes in Foreign Policy. But don't underestimate the risks, he warns, especially if the "intervention degenerates into a long quagmire of air strikes, grinding street battles, and growing pressure for the introduction of outside ground forces." The problem is that "Arab support for the intervention is not nearly as deep as it seems and will not likely survive an extended war," he writes. If Libyan civilians start getting killed by foreign troops, the current anti-Gadhafi narrative "could change quickly into an Iraq-like rage against Western imperialism." Gadhafi's quick declaration of a cease-fire suggests some kind of political settlement could be in the offing. "Let's hope." (Click to read about worries that Gadhafi's move is just a ploy.)