It all seems rather mad, doesn't it? The decision to become involved militarily in the Libyan civil war couldn't take place within a less hospitable context. The U.S. is reeling from spending and deficits, we're already in two wars, our military has been stretched to the limit, we're restive at home, and no one, really, sees President Obama as the kind of leader you'd follow over the top. "This way, men!" "No, I think I'll stay in my trench." People didn't hire him to start battles but to end them. They didn't expect him to open new fronts. Did he not know this? 
 
 He has no happy experience as a rallier of public opinion and a leader of great endeavors; the central initiative of his presidency, the one that gave shape to his leadership, health care, is still unpopular and the cause of continued agitation. When he devoted his entire first year to it, he seemed off point and out of touch. 
 
 This was followed by the BP oil spill, which made him look snakebit. Now he seems incompetent and out of his depth in foreign and military affairs. He is more observed than followed, or perhaps I should say you follow him with your eyes and not your heart. So it's funny he'd feel free to launch and lead a war, which is what this confused and uncertain military action may become. 
 
 What was he thinking? What is he thinking? 
 
 Which gets me to Mr. Obama's speech, the one he hasn't given. I cannot for the life of me see how an American president can launch a serious military action without a full and formal national address in which he explains to the American people why he is doing what he is doing, why it is right, and why it is very much in the national interest. He referred to his aims in parts of speeches and appearances when he was in South America, but now he's home. More is needed, more is warranted, and more is deserved. He has to sit at that big desk and explain his thinking, put forward the facts as he sees them, and try to garner public support. He has to make a case for his own actions. It's what presidents do! And this is particularly important now, because there are reasons to fear the current involvement will either escalate and produce a lengthy conflict or collapse and produce humiliation. 
 
 Without a formal and extended statement, the air of weirdness, uncertainty and confusion that surrounds this endeavor will only deepen. 
 
 The questions that must be answered actually start with the essentials. What, exactly, are we doing? Why are we doing it? At what point, or after what arguments, did the president decide U.S. military involvement was warranted? Is our objective practical and doable? What is America's overriding strategic interest? In what way are the actions taken, and to be taken, seeing to those interests? 
 
 Matthew Kaminski of the editorial board explains America's role in the Libyan campaign. 
 
 From those questions flow many others. We know who we're against—Moammar Gadhafi, a bad man who's done very wicked things. But do we know who we're for? That is, what does the U.S. government know or think it knows about the composition and motives of the rebel forces we're attempting to assist? For 42 years, Gadhafi controlled his nation's tribes, sects and groups through brute force, bribes and blandishments. What will happen when they are no longer kept down? What will happen when they are no longer oppressed? What will they become, and what role will they play in the coming drama? Will their rebellion against Gadhafi degenerate into a dozen separate battles over oil, power and local dominance? 
 
 What happens if Gadhafi hangs on? The president has said he wants U.S. involvement to be brief. But what if Gadhafi is fighting on three months from now? 
 
 On the other hand, what happens if Gadhafi falls, if he's deposed in a palace coup or military coup, or is killed, or flees? What exactly do we imagine will take his place? 
 
 Supporters of U.S. intervention have argued that if we mean to protect Libya's civilians, as we have declared, then we must force regime change. But in order to remove Gadhafi, they add, we will need to do many other things. We will need to provide close-in air power. We will probably have to put in special forces teams to work with the rebels, who are largely untrained and ragtag. The Libyan army has tanks and brigades and heavy weapons. The U.S. and the allies will have to provide the rebels training and give them support. They will need antitank missiles and help in coordinating air strikes. 
 
 Once Gadhafi is gone, will there be a need for an international peacekeeping force to stabilize the country, to provide a peaceful transition, and to help the post-Gadhafi government restore its infrastructure? Will there be a partition? Will Libyan territory be altered? 
 
 None of this sounds like limited and discrete action. 
 
 In fact, this may turn out to be true: If Gadhafi survives, the crisis will go on and on. If Gadhafi falls, the crisis will go on and on. 
 
 Everyone who supports the Libyan endeavor says they don't want an occupation. One said the other day, "We're not looking for a protracted occupation." 
 
 Protracted? 
 
 Mr. Obama has apparently set great store in the fact that he was not acting alone, that Britain, France and Italy were eager to move. That's good—better to work with friends and act in concert. But it doesn't guarantee anything. A multilateral mistake is still a mistake. So far the allied effort has not been marked by good coordination and communication. If the conflict in Libya drags on, won't there tend to be more fissures, more tension, less commitment and more confusion as to objectives and command structures? Could the unanticipated results of the Libya action include new strains, even a new estrangement, among the allies? 
 
 How might Gadhafi hit out, in revenge, in his presumed last days, against America and the West? 
 
 And what, finally, about Congress? Putting aside the past half-century's argument about declarations of war, doesn't Congress, as representative of the people, have the obvious authority and responsibility to support the Libyan endeavor, or not, and to authorize funds, or not? 
 
 These are all big questions, and there are many other obvious ones. If the Libya endeavor is motivated solely by humanitarian concerns, then why haven't we acted on those concerns recently in other suffering nations? It's a rough old world out there, and there's a lot of suffering. What is our thinking going forward? What are the new rules of the road, if there are new rules? Were we, in Libya, making a preemptive strike against extraordinary suffering—suffering beyond what is inevitable in a civil war? 
 
 America has been through a difficult 10 years, and the burden of proof on the need for U.S. action would be with those who supported intervention. Chief among them, of course, is the president, who made the decision as commander in chief. He needs to sit down and tell the American people how this thing can possibly turn out well. He needs to tell them why it isn't mad. ||||| BENGHAZI, Libya -- France declared Libya's airspace "under control" on Friday, after NATO agreed to take command of the no-fly zone in a compromise that appeared to set up dual command centers and possibly new confusion. Coalition warplanes struck Moammar Gadhafi's forces outside the strategic eastern gateway city of Ajdabiya. 
 
 (SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATES) 
 
 Representatives for the regime and the rebels were expected to meet formally for the first time Friday, in Ethiopia, in what the U.N. described as a part of an effort to reach a cease-fire and political solution.The overnight French and British strikes on an artillery battery and armored vehicles were intended to give a measure of relief to Ajdabiya, where residents have fled or cowered under more than a week of shelling and fighting between rebels and government troops. Explosions also could be heard in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, before daybreak Friday, apparently from airstrikes. 
 
 "Libyan airspace is under control, and we proved it yesterday, because a Libyan plane in the hands of pro-Gadhafi forces, which had just taken off from Misrata in order to bomb Misrata, was destroyed by a French Rafale," Adm. Edouard Guillaud said on France-Info radio. 
 
 But the compromise that puts NATO in charge of clearing the skies still leaves the U.S. responsible for the more difficult task of planning attacks on Gadhafi's ground forces and other targets. 
 
 Ajdabiya has been under siege for more than a week, with the rebels holding the city center and scattered checkpoints but facing relentless shelling from government troops on the outskirts. Residents are without electicity or drinking water, and many have fled. 
 
 The U.S. military said coalition jets flew about 150 on Thursday, about 70 of them with American planes. 
 
 "The operation is still focusing on tanks, combat vehicles, air defense targets – really whatever equipment and personnel are threatening the no-fly zone or civilians on the ground in such locations as Ajdabiya and along some other areas on the coast," Marine Corps Capt. Clint Gebke told reporters from aboard the USS Mount Whitney. 
 
 The U.S. has been trying to give up the lead role in the operation against Gadhafi's forces, and NATO agreed late Thursday to assume one element of it – control of the no-fly zone. 
 
 "Nearly all, some 75 percent of the combat air patrol missions in support of the no-fly zone, are now being executed by our coalition partners," Navy Vice Adm. William Gortney, told reporters at the Pentagon. Other countries were handling less than 10 percent of such missions, he said. 
 
 U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United Arab Emirates would deploy 12 planes for the coalition effort. Clinton thanked the U.A.E. for becoming the second Arab country after Qatar to send planes. 
 
 Qatar and U.A.E. are expected to start flying air patrols over Libya by this weekend. 
 
 Libyan state television showed blackened and mangled bodies that it said were victims of airstrikes in Tripoli. Rebels have accused Gadhafi's forces of taking bodies from the morgue and pretending they were civilian casualties. 
 
 A U.S. intelligence report on Monday, the day after coalition missiles attacked Gadhafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound in the capital, said that a senior Gadhafi aide was told to take bodies from a morgue and place them at the scene of the bomb damage, to be displayed for visiting journalists. A senior U.S. defense official revealed the contents of the intelligence report on condition of anonymity because it was classified secret. 
 
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 Associated Press writers Hadeel al-Shalchi in Tripoli, Libya; Angela Charlton in Paris; and Robert Burns in Washington; contributed to this report. ||||| President Barack Obama is resisting pressure to deliver an Oval Office speech explaining his policy on Libya — in part, because he doesn’t want to equate what he regards as a smaller, time-limited mission with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
 
 Administration officials haven’t ruled out a big speech, but Obama is reluctant to make a major address on Libya until the United States hands over most command and combat duties to its allies. 
 
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 That’s not to say the president won’t talk about Libya over the next few days, aides say, but he’s not likely to succumb to pressure to deliver a long, explanatory address to outline his elusive endgame to the nation until the path ahead becomes clearer. 
 
 There were signs that might come sooner rather than later on Thursday. For the first time since combat operations began, the vast majority of flights over Libya on Thursday were conducted by U.S. allies, a sharp contrast to the previous 24 hours when American planes flew the majority of missions. 
 
 And NATO member nations on Thursday evening approved a plan under which the alliance will assume command of the no-fly zone over Libya. 
 
 “We are already seeing a significant reduction in the number of U.S. planes involved in the operation as the number of planes from other countries increase,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said after the decision by NATO. “Today we are taking the next step. All 28 allies have also now authorized military authorities to develop an operations plan for NATO to take on the broader civilian protections mission.” 
 
 Clinton’s reassuring assessment masked a ferocious round of last-minute negotiations, culminating in a four-way call between Clinton and the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Turkey on Thursday afternoon that sealed a preliminary deal. 
 
 “This was a hard diplomatic battle,” a senior administration official said. “Building consensus among 29 nations is never easy.” 
 
 Whatever happens, Obama is intent on putting the U.S. in the back seat. As part of an effort to downplay the scope of U.S. involvement, administration officials have flatly refused to call the enforcement of the Libyan no-fly, no-drive zone — which has included the launch of more than hundred cruise missiles and dozens of U.S. aircraft sorties — a “war.” 
 
 It is “a time-limited, scope-limited military action,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday. 
 
 Still, the lack of a clearly articulated endgame — or even a rationale for quickly committing U.S. naval and air assets in a third Muslim nation — is making House and Senate members in both parties increasingly uneasy. 
 
 Their main concern: That Obama’s oft-stated goal of ousting Qadhafi isn’t backed up by the U.N. resolution, which calls only for the use of force in establishing a no-fly-zone and protecting civilians, putting U.S. forces in awkward suspension between humanitarian goals and regime change.
– Peggy Noonan is among those scratching their heads over the US decision to flex its muscle in Libya, and she'd like help figuring it out ... from President Obama himself. "I cannot for the life of me see how an American president can launch a serious military action without a full and formal national address in which he explains to the American people why he is doing what he is doing, why it is right, and why it is very much in the national interest," she writes in the Wall Street Journal. Noonan spends most of the column raising question and after question about the intervention and sounds very skeptical about its chances of ending well. All the more reason for Obama to personally make his case. "He has to sit at that big desk and explain his thinking, put forward the facts as he sees them, and try to garner public support," she writes. "It's what presidents do!" (Politico says Obama is purposely avoiding such a big speech because he doesn't want to equate the Libya action with larger wars. Click for the latest developments in the fighting.)