Hillary’s war: How conviction replaced skepticism in Libya intervention

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/hillarys-war-how-conviction-replaced-skepticism-in-libya-intervention/2011/10/28/gIQAhGS7WM_story.html

A reminder: it's not just the Iraq War Vote.

Seven months later, with longtime U.S. nemesis Moammar Gaddafi dead and Libya’s onetime rebels now in charge, the coalition air campaign has emerged as a foreign policy success for the Obama administration and its most famous Cabinet member, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

What emerges from these accounts is a picture of Clinton using her mixture of political pragmatism and tenacity to referee spats among NATO partners, secure crucial backing from Arab countries and tutor rebels on the fine points of message management.

Clinton, in an interview, acknowledged “periods of anguish and buyer’s remorse” during the seven months of the campaign. But, she said, “we set into motion a policy that was on the right side of history, on the right side of our values, on the right side of our strategic interests in the region.”

Fast forward 6 years:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/02/united-nations-ban-ki-moon-libya-peace-deal-ceasefire-deadline-miss

Ban Ki-moon calls for Libya peace deal as factions miss ceasefire deadline

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, has called for Libya’s factions to end their civil war after yet another deadline passed without a ceasefire and fighting raged on across the country. At a meeting in New York originally planned to celebrate the signing of a UN-brokered peace deal, Ban appealed to the country’s rival governments to come together. “No agreement is perfect, but this document will help Libya move beyond the chaos,” he said.

But the failure of Libyans to agree to the power-sharing plan has left a question mark over whether diplomacy can end a war that has plunged the country into chaos and made it a springboard for people smugglers and Islamic State (Isis).

But the rival governments, facing off from different ends of the country, have signalled their refusal to sign. Khalifa al-Ghwell, the prime minister of the Tripoli-based General National Congress, declared the plan to be “inconsistent with the highest principles of the nation”. Meanwhile, Agila Saleh Gwaider, president of the elected and internationally recognised House of Representatives based in the eastern city of Tobruk, said no deal could be done while his rival held the capital by force.

The ceasefire refusal came amid the heaviest fighting in several months, a reminder that it is the warlords – not invited to the UN talks – rather than the politicians who call the shots.