We Don't Command The Rebels

Peter Beinart compares the Libyan War to our interventions in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Afghanistan:

[T]he more successful an air war is, the less control America has over its allies on the ground. The U.S. didn’t want the Kosovo Liberation Army to cleanse the province of Serbs or to declare independence. They did both. We wanted the Northern Alliance to stop short of Kabul when the Taliban fled the city. They ignored us. If we’re lucky, the Libyan rebels will soon be a much more powerful force, and if we’re really lucky, they’ll be a powerful force capable of unifying Libya behind a reasonably humane regime. But the latter will be mostly out of our hands.