The advocates of intervention in Libya have all strenuously avoided any comparison with Iraq. David Cameron and Hillary Clinton have pointed repeatedly towards the costs of inaction in Bosnia in the mid-1990s instead. This has not gone down well with Donald Rumsfeld, who wants the 2003 Iraqi invasion to get some credit.
The former US secretary of defence tweeted:
There’s a reason Gaddafi isn’t contemplating using a nuclear/radiological weapon today: he saw what happened to Saddam.
I wonder if Cameron and co will say “thank you”.