I think it's safe to say that the multilateral coalition implementing Operation Odyssey Dawn have had their share of public spats.  This means a lot of hand-holding and negative punditry/negative press stories on the issue. 

Of course, this raises the question of whether there's a better alternative or not.  As sick as liberals might be of using force in the Middle East, I suspect they're even sicker of doing this unilaterally.  Some conservatives seem to get the notion that multilateralism has its advantages -- particularly with generating American support for these kind of missions.

Clearly, there are tradeoffs here.  I could weight them very carefully using my own limited understanding, or I could be smart and ask an expert.  So, I posed the question to Sarah Kreps, Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University and the author of the now-extremely-trenchant Coalitions of Convenience: United States Military Interventions after the Cold War.  Her thoughts on the matter:   

Prime Minister Churchill once opined that "there is only one thing worse than fighting with allies-and that is having to fight without them."  These words were remarkable coming from a leader who had spent the better part of two years trying to encourage the American military to enter WWII.  Given coalition operations in Libya, leaders couldn't be blamed for drawing the same conclusion as Churchill.

On the one hand, coalition operations in Libya are a recipe for disaster.  UN Security Council Resolution 1973 was crafted in intentionally vague terms in order to minimize opposition.  The unintended consequence is that no one can figure out who's in charge, what the goals are, and when they'll leave. Undertaking this as a NATO operation would have been obvious since at least it has a clear decision making apparatus, but member state Turkey opposes the use of military force in Libya.  As the Turkish prime minister said in televised speech, "Turkey will never be on the side of pointing the gun at the Libyan people."  The alternative to NATO is what Prime Minister David Cameron referred to as an ad hoc "coalition of the willing"-remember Iraq?-with a mishmash of largely British, American, French, Danish military assets.  But which of these is taking the lead and how these militaries are being coordinated is a mystery.  This violates rule #1 of military operations:  unity of command.

On the other hand, the United States already has TWO ongoing wars.  Undertaking a third was of questionable merit in my book, but once it decided to use force, it made sense to be able to share the burden with others.  President Obama justified the multilateral operation saying that "it means the United States is not bearing all the cost."  At the least, going multilaterally will have defrayed the cost for an overstretched American military. 

Whether multilateralism makes it more legitimate and exonerates the US from accusations of invading another Muslim country is another story.  The initial signs are not encouraging.  US marines have already been accused of firing on civilians when they went in to rescue the pilots of the fallen F-15E.  Ultimately, events on the ground are likely to determine the legitimacy, not UN and Arab League approval.  If the operation is successful, then multilateralism will have seemed like the legitimate, effective choice. 

Of course, the first step is to figure out what success looks like.  That ambiguity, however, is no fault of the coalition.   The US has had some difficulty figuring that out in its "own" wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Making that decision by committee will be considerably more difficult.  But far preferable, as Churchill might have said, than having to bear the burden of fighting alone.

What do you think? 

Everybody -- and by everybody, I mean FP --  is getting hot and bothered by this section of Peter Baker's New York Times story: 

If there is an Obama doctrine emerging, it is one much more realpolitik than his predecessor’s, focused on relations with traditional great powers and relegating issues like human rights and democracy to second-tier concerns. He has generated much more good will around the world after years of tension with Mr. Bush, and yet he does not seem to have strong personal friendships with many world leaders.

“Everybody always breaks it down between idealist and realist,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. “If you had to put him in a category, he’s probably more realpolitik, like Bush 41,” the first President George Bush, Mr. Emanuel said.

He added, “He knows that personal relationships are important, but you’ve got to be cold-blooded about the self-interests of your nation.”

Stephen G. Rademaker, a former official in the George W. Bush administration, said: “For a president coming out of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, it’s remarkable how much he has pursued a great power strategy. It’s almost Kissingerian. It’s not very sentimental. Issues of human rights do not loom large in his foreign policy, and issues of democracy promotion, he’s been almost dismissive of.”

Well, a couple of thoughts.  First, the idea of George H.W. Bush disdaining personal relationships is somewhat absurd.  Bush 41 was notorious for his thank you cards and supersized Rolodex.  On the margins, personal rapport among leaders does count for something, so this certainly helped Bush advance the national inrest. 

So that makes Bush different from Obama, right?  Well, let's click over to Scott Wilson's story in today's Washington Post now, shall we? 

[I]n convening his first international summit -- the largest on a single issue in Washington history -- [Obama] focused more squarely on his relationship with world leaders. He slapped backs, kissed cheeks and met one on one with more than a dozen heads of state, leavening his appeal to shared security interests with a more personal diplomacy.

The approach marked a shift for Obama as he seeks to translate his popularity abroad into concrete support from fellow leaders for his foreign policy agenda, most urgently now in his push for stricter sanctions against Iran.

"He's in charge, he's chairing the meetings, and this is where his personality plays a big part," said Pierre Vimont, the French ambassador to the United States, who compared Obama's role during the summit to the way he led the bipartisan health-care meeting at Blair House in February....

Obama's attention to his guests began on the summit's opening night, when he spent more than an hour and a half greeting the 46 foreign leaders and three heads of international organizations he invited.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom administration officials describe as high on the list of the European leaders Obama most admires, received a kiss on each cheek at the final bilateral meeting.

Obama bowed formally to Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. He used both hands to shake the hands of some leaders and joked with others.

David Miliband, Britain's foreign secretary, said such personal diplomacy is "quite important" at summits, especially one about an issue he said is "often seen as administrative."

"When Obama stands up and says 'My friend Dmitry Medvedev' or 'My friend Nicolas Sarkozy,' he's right, and that's important," Miliband said. "He's made a number of friends of world leaders, and I think that's a testament to why so many arrived to take part in this."

Wow, so it really is George H.W. Obama, right? 

As someone who thinks George H.W. Bush has been vastly underrated, I'd love to say yes.  But this gets confusing to your humble blogger.  After all, some have argued that Obama is really no different than George W. Bush.  I'm also pretty sure I've read somewhere, way back in early 2010, that Obama is really Jimmy Carter.  So I'm not sure  this comparison can or should stick. 

Moving from personalities to ideas, the realist/idealist divide, you still wind up with a muddle.  Bob Kagan is right to say that Obama's desire for a nuclear-free world is about as idealistic as one can get.  Similarly, Obama's affirmation of multilateralism doesn't seem terribly realist either.  On the other hand, his policies towards great power rivals like Russia and China, and dependent allies like Israel and Afghanistan, seem pretty damn realist.  Much like his Nobel Peace Prize address, the Obama administration's latest foray into the less shallow waters of international relations theory offers a sliver of support to all major IR approaches. 

Which box you put him in, I suspect, depends on which policy dimension you think matters most.  Human rights advocates will use the r-word; fans of nuclear deterrence will use the i-word.  As someone concerned with the management of great power politics, I'd be comfortable calling Obama an realist, but I'm biased  -- I speculated that this was the approach the post-Bush president would be forced to pursue. 

The following is not rocket science, but rather International Relations 101. Still, I hadn't seen it anywhere else, so here goes:

The parallels between ongoing events in Honduras and Iran are surprisingly strong, and it's worth thinking about them for a spell.

In both countries, conservative elements of the established regime conducted what was, essentially, a coup d'etat. In both cases, the coup-plotters used both legal and extralegal means to cement their hold on power. These actions have triggered mass demonstrations in the streets of Tehran and Tegucigalpa. Both governments are rather paranoid about external influence on their regime. And, in some domestic politics version of the security dilemma (I hereby label this the "sovereignty dilemma"), that paranoia about external meddling is merely fuelling greater international attention to their domestic affairs of state.

Now, what are the differences? They boil down to a few important distinctions:

• Iran is much, much more powerful than Honduras.
• Honduras possesses much less strategic significance than Iran.

What does this mean? It means that realist and liberal logics will work together in Honduras and against each other in Iran. The Organization of American States could never reverse a regime change in, say, Brazil -- but multilateral coordination will have an effect on Honduras. Indeed, the fact that Honduras is relatively small is what makes it easy for the OAS to muster some consnsus on the issue. Furthermore, in contrast to larger countries, the effect of multilateral sanctions on Honduras would be pretty significant.

In Iran, on the other hand, conflicting strategic interests prevent any kind of great power concert that could push for domestic change. It's also far from clear whether anything short of a gasoline embargo would really have an appreciable impact on the regime in Tehran.

So, holding everything else constant, the odds are that the coup in Honduras are more likely to be reversed than the coup in Iran.

Bear in mind, however, that life never holds everything else constant.