Libya and ambivalence

It's not often that I agree with Boris Johnson, but his column this week on Libya makes some very strong points. This feeling, in particular, echoes my own:

I must confess that when I saw that Tomahawk firecracker rise on Saturday evening from that American ship, I did not feel any propane blast of neo-con enthusiasm. I did not cry yee-hah or pound my sofa. I emitted a long, deep groan of apprehension. The cause is noble and right, and we are surely bound by our common humanity to help the people of Benghazi. But if we are to make a success of this mission, it is vital that we learn from the past and understand the risks.

The main risks, he says, are the Qaddafi will hang on, tempting the West to send in ground troops and embark on another Iraq/Afghanistan-style boondoggle, and that the if Qaddafi eventually does fall, he will be replaced with either a military or Islamic dictatorship that hardly qualifies as a step forward. He continues:

This is not an argument for inertia; I am simply saying that we should beware of the law of unintended consequences, and to minimise those risks we should lay down some basic conditions for success in Libya. The first and most important is that we do not repeat the appalling mistakes of Iraq. We must not lie or misrepresent what we are doing. We must not glory in Call Of Duty-style Pentagon footage of Western weapons being used to blitz Gaddafi's forces. We must not talk of "victory" or "mission accomplished". We cannot allow Gaddafi or anyone else to present this as a crusade. [...]
This is a UN mission that has the overwhelming support of the Arab League countries. But it is absolutely vital that we maintain that support, and that at every stage we take account of sentiment in the Arab world.

 Hear, hear.