Worldview: Why we mustn't initiate a Libya no-fly zone

As Libyan rebels are pushed back by the forces of the mad Col. Moammar Gadhafi, we're all rooting for the underdog.

Even though we know little about the rebels and their leaders, we assume they'd be an improvement over the crazed colonel. But that emotional tug doesn't justify the proposal by three influential senators - Republicans Mitch McConnell and John McCain, and Democrat John Kerry - that we set up a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Gadhafi from bombing his own people.

As the Pentagon (which opposes the idea) knows too well, our military is still deeply enmeshed in Afghanistan, hasn't yet left Iraq - and has Special Forces in Yemen. We can't afford to become involved in another war in another Muslim land.

Despite the emotional pleas by Benghazi rebels on CNN, much of the talk about no-fly zones ignores the harsh realities of the Libyan conflict. The ongoing Arab revolts have been genuine grassroots protests driven by local grievances, and not orchestrated by the West or other outside powers; this is an immense source of pride and renewed self-confidence for local Arabs, as I witnessed during my recent trip to Egypt. Any unilateral U.S. intervention in Libya would raise the specter of colonial intervention and would rally radical Islamists to the cause of Gadhafi.

The situation might be different if the U.N. Security Council endorsed a no-fly zone over Libya, but that seems highly unlikely, given the opposition of Russia and China. Nor are most NATO countries eager to sign on to a no-fly zone, especially without U.N. authorization. President Obama has said that NATO would consider all options when it met Thursday, but I think he was just trying to talk tough.

It might be easier to generate an international response if Gadhafi were slaughtering huge numbers of people. Massive ethnic cleansing by Serbian leaders impelled the United Nations to declare a no-fly zone over Bosnia in 1993 and for NATO to impose one over Kosovo in 1999. The United States, France, and Britain imposed no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq in the early 1990s after Saddam Hussein slaughtered thousands of Shiites.