This escalating rhetoric of military intervention from pundits and the administration toward Libya is not surprising. Libya has oil, and the West needs it. But we should not repeat the mistake of Iraq. The United States – or Europe – should not send troops to Libya except as part of a UN peacekeeping mission.
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, foreign policy analysts have struggled to find a term to characterize the epoch we now inhabit. Although the ÂPost-Cold War Era has been the reigning expression, this label now sounds dated and no longer does justice to the particular characteristics of the current period. Others have spoken of the ÂPost-9/11 Era, as if the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were defining moments for the entire world. But this image no longer possesses the power it once wieldedÂeven in the United States.