More saliently, a military operation would not serve U.S. interests. Even a multinational intervention would play into Qaddafi's hand by supporting his narrative of Libya under siege by foreigners with ulterior motives. Most importantly, the United States cannot and should not take responsibility for dismantling and subsequently reconstructing a dysfunctional petrostate with no legacy of democratic governance.

Of course, we've been here before. The United States led an NFZ over northern and southern Iraq for much of the 1990s and until the 2003 invasion. Soon after they were imposed, in 1992, a U.S. official mused hopefully, "How long do you think [Saddam Hussein] could last within just four parallels?" The answer was 11 years, and his removal was only accomplished through a massive invasion of 150,000 ground troops.

Saddam Hussein had many enemies that were protected by the NFZs -- when it came to aircraft attack. On Iraqi soil, however, the NFZ was useless against Saddam's ground forces. For years after the failed Shiite uprising in 1991, Saddam initiated a brutal counterinsurgency campaign in the south, building roadways into the marshlands to bring artillery within range of Shia insurgents, conducting cordon operations in suspected rebel areas, and draining marshes to eliminate places to hide.

In the north, during a short-lived Kurdish uprising in 1996, Saddam marshaled two Republican Guard and three regular army divisions to form a battle group of 40,000 troops, 300 tanks, and 300 artillery pieces. As U.S. and British warplanes -- charged with enforcing the NFZ -- circled overhead, the Iraqi ground forces crushed the uprising in under a week. 

This last anecdote speaks to the impossibility of a limited intervention when a despotic leader will do anything to hold onto power. If the United States initiated an NFZ, how would pilots react to massacres unfolding before their eyes? No matter how noble the intention of protecting Libyans, the United States must be realistic about the American appetite for intervention and what it would realistically entail. Indeed, only 12 percent of Americans support a military intervention, while 38 percent support an NFZ.

Policymakers have mistaken a tactic for a strategy in this debate. Before an NFZ or any other military options are considered, the Obama administration must articulate what the U.S. strategy toward Libya is. Then, we can debate the costs and consequences of what it will take to achieve it.

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