Twelve years after invading Iraq to overthrow a dictator:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

America is now back to the usual post-JFK business of creating dictators who have ties to American intelligence and military appratuses and don't have a leg to stand on as far as ther own abilities to take and maintain power. This General Haftar will no doubt end up, if he really does represent Libyan definitions of Libyan interests as a Gadaffi of the many spellings Mk. II, and if he represents purely American interests serving in a few decades as the next Hosni Mubarak. Above all Libya confirms once again the exact same lesson that the collapse in the 1950s of the empires carved in the 1910s should have made loud and clear the first time. Southwest Asia is about as good a pace to implement the White Man's Burden as Afghanistan, and attempts to do so are doomed to fail before they start. Of course this latest dictator propped up in the name of freedom and democracy will be a nice secular demagogue until he proves to be the slighest bit independent, 'twas ever thus:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/unravelling