"The establishment applauded. Obama’s overthrow of the Gaddafi government, declared the New York Times, was “an historic victory for the people of Libya who, with NATO’s help, transformed their country from an international pariah into a nation with the potential to become a productive partner with the West.” The triumphant tone evokes another famous Times dispatch, from Cambodia in April 1975. The headline: “Indochina Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life.” That story ran in the paper four days before the Khmer Rouge entered Phnom Penh and began murdering more than a third of the country’s population. The aftermath in Libya hasn’t been quite as bloody, but that’s small comfort. Instead of creating a democratic, Westernized Libya, Obama’s destruction of Gaddafi simply created a new failed state. Rather than marginalizing radical Islam, Gaddafi’s fall empowered it, and by 2014 the country was in another civil war that killed thousands. ISIS militants have found a haven in the lawless country. While Gaddafi had blocked illegal migration to Europe, the new Libya has been powerless to stop it, and hundreds of thousands of African migrants have made their way to Europe from Libyan ports. Things got so bad in Libya after Gaddafi was deposed that even the Times had to acknowledge it might be some time before the country could become “a productive partner with the West.” Luckily, the Times had a solution: more American intervention in Libya."