Recommended: The Shores of Tripoli: Our Latest Wilsonian War

Walter Russell Mead, a writer who really understands the broadest sweeps of history (he is James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College) has a good article in the March 30 The America Interest website entitled The Shores of Tripoli: Our Latest Wilsonian War. It is well worth reading.

Whatever the overeager advisers around President Obama thought when they convinced him to put our collective American hand into this dogfight, a simple no-fly zone looks like it isn't going to do the job (once again, air power has been oversold to a naive president!), and one wonders how much farther into the fight we will be drawn, and how much more (borrowed) money we will waste before it is all over.  America does indeed have some "Wilsonian" responsibilities to promote moral values in the world (and even at home, one hopes), but that has to be tempered with some common sense and perspective and reality.  I don't see the latter here.