Libya..

 

The Conventional Wisdom Is Wrong.  Libya's 2011 uprising was never peaceful, but instead was armed and violent from the start. 

Muammar al-Qaddafi did not target civilians or resort to indiscriminate force. 

NATO's intervention did not aim mainly to protect civilians, but rather to overthrow Qaddafi's regime, even at the expense of increasing the harm to Libyans.

The Intervention Backfired. NATO's action magnified the conflict's duration about sixfold and its death toll at least sevenfold, while also exacerbating human rights abuses, humanitarian suffering, Islamic radicalism, and weapons proliferation in Libya and its neighbors. 

If Libya was a "model intervention," then it was a model of failure. However, did anyone paid a price for the dead?   Just a thought.

[Belfer Center.]