Perspective on Libya

One other element to keep in mind: we know Egypt is 'interested' in Cyrenaica, and would be moreso were ??? hundred thousand Libyan refugees (as well as the estimated million Egyptian guest workers) to stream over the border. (Nb. in the event that Gaddafi had gone into Benghazi (then Tobruk, etc.) with his armor, it's a fairly safe prediction that most of the first refugees across the wire would come armed and riding Toyota technicals).

We know Egyptian 'distraction' by events in Cyrenaica would be particularly unproductive in the context of its current political turmoil.

Finally, we know just how bad 'refugee distraction' has been in the past for Egypt's political development: the '48-73 period is one where repeated refugee crises entangled themselves with war and increased military authoritarianism.

This larger context tends to justify according events in Libya far more strategic weight than would normally be merited by a small (6m people) albeit oil-rich country.* (Not clear whether the 6m figure includes the 1m (!!!) Egyptians working in Libya).

Conversely, Libya's scale (2m smaller than New York City, about 1/4 the population of 1989 Yugoslavia) does impose an upper limit on the amount of trouble we can get into in our intervention. This is, I suspect, one reason why the U.S. has -- so far -- been able to avoid bogging itself down in Libya in the past, despite 2-3 previous 'interventions' of only modest utility.