President Obama's speech tonight speech left me with a lot more questions than answers. Among them, Has the definition of "interests" changed significantly? If the decision to intervene is based on local pleas for help, UN/international backing, the strong likelihood thousands will be slaughtered, and our unique ability to do something about it, why isn't the U.S. moving more decisively to prevent a massacre in Cote d'Ivoire? What happens if things don't go as planned and Gaddafi doesn't leave in short order? Does the President agree with his general's assessment of the rebels' limited military capabilities? What about their capacity to govern? How would the U.S. deal with a stalemate? Why does the administration keep using the same cliches? (As Dan Drezner put it, "'False choice'!!! Drink!?") And so many more.

Spencer Ackerman was dead on when he tweeted, "This speech seems to be more geared toward arguing that the Libya war is just, rather than arguing that it's wise, or can succeed."

I hope the administration is listening to the recommendations given by CNAS's Andrew Exum and Zachary Hosford in their new policy brief.  For those with an extremely short attention span, Exum provides this overview on his blog:

1. No matter what anyone else says, the United States and its allies are at war in Libya.
2. The United States has very few interests in Libya.
3. Unlike with respect to Afghanistan in 2009, the Obama Administration went to war in Libya without a deliberate planning process that forced policy makers to articulate U.S. interests, goals and assumptions. This helps to explain why the administration has had so much difficulty articulating, for the American people, our interests in, goals toward and assumptions about Libya.
4. Now that we're in this mess, a policy of regime change in Libya makes the most sense.
5. We see two possible outcomes in Libya: either a rapid collapse of the regime, or a stalemate. We assess the latter as more likely.
6. In order to avoid the latter and in light of U.S. interests, we believe the United States should establish a structure of incentives to get Moammar Gadhafi to leave. Kinetic military action by U.S. forces is not part of our proposed incentive structure. In fact, we think the United States should halt direct military action and work to broaden the international coalition to include more countries who do have interests in Libya.
7. We should be prepared to accept the status quo antebellum, though. Why? See #2.