Fingers Off The Button

The undie-bomber's possible ties to al-Queda in the Arabian Peninsula prompts Marc Lynch to outline the boundaries of reasonable debate:

Direct American military intervention in Yemen is so obviously ludicrous that it shouldn't even need to be said. Even the hyper-interventionist conservatives at the Washington Post op-ed page allow that "U.S. ground troops are not needed, for now." They never should be. The U.S. is already struggling to fully resource and equip a mission in Afghanistan which has been defined -- rightly or wrongly -- as vital to American security and interests. The U.S. simply does not have the resources to embark on a military mission in Yemen. If you think Afghanistan is a sinkhole, you will love Yemen. The yawning gap between the extent of U.S. interests and the resources necessary to make a difference is even greater in Yemen than in Afghanistan. And the optics of yet another American military intervention in the Arab world -- under Obama, no less -- would be devastating to the wider Obama outreach strategy. (On the positive side, at least committing scarce U.S. troops to Yemen would make a military strike against Iran that much less likely.)