When Humanitarianism Turns Realistic

On March 19, 2011, French and British forces, with the military support of the United States, launched a massive attack against the Libyan army. The official objective of the air and naval strikes was to impose a no-fl y zone to protect the civilians of Misrata, Ajdabiya, and Benghazi from massacres predicted by the head of the Libyan National Transitional Council. Nine days later, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and British prime minister David Cameron jointly declared that "hundreds of thousands of people had thus been saved from a humanitarian disaster"—but, they added, "Libya was still confronted with a humanitarian crisis."