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Americans are
startled to find their country suddenly in yet another war, under the
command of a president who once won the Nobel Prize for Peace.

“I do not
understand the mission because as far as I can tell in the United
States there is no mission and there are no guidelines for success,”
said Republican Senator Richard Lugar.

The mission is
Libya, where a growing list of countries are establishing a United
Nations-authorized no-fly zone to protect civilians in the uprising
against Moammar Gadhafi.

But Washington and
its allies have also called for Gadhafi’s ouster and their intervention
may offer a tempting opportunity to help arrange it. American officials
have been consistently vague about that part of the plan.

President Barack
Obama, honoured with the Nobel in 2009 for favouring “dialogue and
negotiation,” hardly rushed into the Libya plan.

His administration
seemed reluctant to take on another war in addition to the costly and
exhausting conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some of Obama’s
opponents and even supporters argued that the U.S. had both a moral
obligation to help the rebels and an opportunity to unseat a rogue
leader who had annoyed Washington for decades and would likely lash out
against it again.

CNN Analyst David
Gergen said that after weeks of inaction, the president’s decision to
get involved was a sudden ‘head-snapping’ change of course.

CNN’s most recent poll finds that Americans support it, with one very real concern.

Fully 70 percent
favour an air-campaign to protect civilians but exactly the same number
oppose putting U.S. troops on to the ground.

“It’s a very very fragile kind of support,” said Gergen, a former White House aide.

“The overall
feeling is that people are uncertain what we’re trying to do. They’re
very reluctant to get involved in a war with another Muslim country.”
In fact, some Republican and Democratic lawmakers immediately began
questioning the decision.

Some are opposed
to vaguely defined military action in a country which poses no direct
threat, others question the cost or oppose it on constitutional grounds
as a decision that the president can’t legally make without
authorization from Congress.

Three wars at once. It’s bound to make any nation nervous.

Jonathan Mann
presents Political Mann on CNN International each Friday at 18:30
(CAT), Saturday at 3pm and 9pm (CAT), and Sunday at 10am (CAT).