The choice of any course of action in matters military, political, or economic, narrows the range of options available for other arenas. In this sense our intervention in Iraq has "weakened" us in that it constitutes a choice of partially exclusive alternatives. Our widest range of options would seem to be available if we did nothing at all. This is illusory.
As Hanson makes clear, this narrowing of scope has, in fact, widened our practical options by giving them credibility. And it turns out that credibility is considerably more effective in the exercise of power than simply a long laundry-list of possibilities that everyone is certain that we will never use. Clinton's withdrawal from Somalia, for example, freed those troops for an employment elsewhere that everyone knew would never happen. While technically that increased our options elsewhere, in practical effect it throttled them.
There is a continuing chorus from the dimwits on the left that somewhow our intervention in Iraq commits us to armed conflict everywhere there is a despot who has decided to act against our interests. In fact, it does nothing of the sort. VDH's point here is that because we have done this other means are more likely of success - Libya, for example - and that despots are more likely to be amenable to them in the presence of a President who might just be crazy enough to plant an Abrams in their palace grounds.
Thank you Bill. The range of options before the Coalition, while not limitless, is more numerous than most sidewalk superintendents would realize. Libya's "turning states evidence" is merely one of many ways we will create capitulation to our will for a stable balance of power in this complex interdependent world.
Your clear thinking is refreshing.