The problem is that the direction of this effect is unclear. The dramatic visual impact of this air strike, and the death of those disconnected from political and military leadership, will harden the diplomatic opposition to the war, from Russia and China amongst others.
More consequentially, it will anger the alliance’s warier members, like Germany and Turkey, and inflame parts of Arab and African public opinion.
It may eventually leave Britain and France bearing the military burden alone, with modest but limited assistance from a cagey US administration eager to keep at arm’s length from this European war.
Col Gaddafi’s overarching strategy has never been to win a conventional war, but to induce symbolically prominent casualties, drive a wedge between more committed and more ambivalent members of the coalition, and knock away the pillars of political support on which this intervention was built.
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