IT’S NOT JUST BENGHAZI: An Ongoing Policy Failure In Libya.

Dozens have been killed, dozens more wounded, and the clashes between General Hifter’s forces and Islamist militias don’t seem to be winding down. The country is thoroughly fragmented, flirting with the failed state label.

To the extent that the Western media pays attention to Libya, it has focused on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, and specifically the domestic politics surrounding the investigation into that incident. Why not focus on the real failure of policy—namely, the muddled thinking that led us into Libya in the first place?

It was a war of choice, fought on the credit card, with no real understanding of the country targeted and no clear exit plan, complicated by astonishing incompetence in following up after the dictator was toppled.