Does practice make perfect? In today’s episode, America has intervened in a civil war in a tribal society, the dynamics of which America does not understand. And America is supporting one faction, the nature of which it does not know. “We are standing with the people of Libya,” says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, evidently confident that “the” people are a harmonious unit. Many in the media call Moammar Gaddafi’s opponents “freedom fighters,” and perhaps they are, but no one calling them that really knows how the insurgents regard one another, or understand freedom, or if freedom, however understood, is their priority.

But, then, knowing is rarely required in the regime-change business. The Weekly Standard, a magazine for regime-change enthusiasts, serenely says: “The Libyan state is a one-man operation. Eliminate that man and the whole edifice may come tumbling down.” And then good things must sprout? The late Donald Westlake gave one of his comic novels the mordant title “What’s the Worst That Could Happen?” People who do not find that darkly funny should not make foreign policy.

In Libya, mission creep began before the mission did. A no-fly zone would not accomplish what Barack Obama calls “a well-defined goal,” the “protection of civilians.” So the no-fly zone immediately became protection for aircraft conducting combat operations against Gaddafi’s ground forces.

America’s war aim is inseparable from — indeed, obviously is — destruction of that regime. So our purpose is to create a political vacuum, into which we hope — this is the “audacity of hope” as foreign policy — good things will spontaneously flow. But if Gaddafi cannot be beaten by the rebels, are we prepared to supply their military deficiencies? And if the decapitation of his regime produces what the removal of Saddam Hussein did — bloody chaos — what then are our responsibilities regarding the tribal vendettas we may have unleashed? How long are we prepared to police the partitioning of Libya?

Explaining his decision to wage war, Obama said Gaddafi has “lost the confidence of his own people and the legitimacy to lead.” Such meretricious boilerplate seems designed to anesthetize thought. When did Gaddafi lose his people’s confidence? When did he have legitimacy? American doctrine — check the Declaration of Independence — is that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. So there are always many illegitimate governments. When is it America’s duty to scrub away these blemishes on the planet? Is there a limiting principle of humanitarian interventionism? If so, would Obama take a stab at stating it?

Congress’ power to declare war resembles a muscle that has atrophied from long abstention from proper exercise. This power was last exercised on June 5, 1942 (against Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary), almost 69 years, and many wars, ago. It thus may seem quaint, and certainly is quixotic, for Indiana’s Richard Lugar — ranking Republican on, and former chairman of, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — to say, correctly, that Congress should debate and vote on this.

There are those who think that if the United Nations gives the United States permission to wage war, the Constitution becomes irrelevant. Let us find out who in Congress supports this proposition, which should be resoundingly refuted, particularly by Republicans currently insisting that government, and especially the executive, should be on a short constitutional leash. If all Republican presidential aspirants are supine in the face of unfettered presidential war-making and humanitarian interventionism, the Republican field is radically insufficient.

On Dec. 29, 1962, in Miami’s Orange Bowl, President John Kennedy, who ordered the Bay of Pigs invasion, addressed a rally of survivors and supporters of that exercise in regime change. Presented with the invasion brigade’s flag, Kennedy vowed, “I can assure you that this flag will be returned to this brigade in a free Havana.” Eleven months later, on Nov. 2, 1963, his administration was complicit in another attempt at violent regime change — the coup against, and murder of, South Vietnam’s President Ngo Dinh Diem. The Saigon regime was indeed changed, so perhaps this episode counts as a success, even if Saigon is now Ho Chi Minh City.

The mole who allegedly gave WikiLeaks the mountains of secret documents is Pfc. Bradley Manning, Army intelligence analyst and angry gay.

We’ve heard 1 billion times about the Army translator who just wanted to serve his country, but was cashiered because of whom he loved.

I’ll see your Army translator and raise you one Bradley Manning.

According to Bradley’s online chats, he was in “an awkward place” both “emotionally and psychologically.” So in a snit, he betrayed his country by orchestrating the greatest leak of classified intelligence in U.S. history.

Isn’t that in the Army Code of Conduct? You must follow orders at all times. Exceptions will be made for servicemen in an awkward place. Now, who wants a hug? Waitress! Three more apple-tinis!”

According to The New York Times, Bradley sought “moral support” from his “self-described drag queen” boyfriend. Alas, he still felt out of sorts. So why not sell out his country?

In an online chat with a computer hacker, Bradley said he lifted the hundreds of thousands of classified documents by pretending to be listening to a CD labeled “Lady Gaga.” Then he acted as if he were singing along with her hit song “Telephone” while frantically downloading classified documents.

I’m not a military man, but I think singing along to Lady Gaga would constitute “telling” under “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Do you have to actually wear a dress to be captured by the Army’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” dragnet?

What constitutes being “openly” gay now? Bringing a spice rack to basic training? Attending morning drills decked out as a Cher impersonator? Following Anderson Cooper on Twitter?

Also, U.S. military, have you seen a picture of Bradley Manning? The photo I’ve seen is only from the waist up, but you get the feeling that he’s wearing butt-less chaps underneath. He looks like a guy in a soldier costume at the Greenwich Village Halloween parade.

With any luck, Bradley’s court-martial will be gayer than a Liza Minelli wedding. It could be the first court-martial in U.S. history to feature ice sculptures and a “Wizard of Oz”-themed gazebo. “Are you going to Bradley’s court-martial? I hear Patti LaBelle is going to sing!”

Maybe there’s a reason gays have traditionally been kept out of the intelligence services, apart from the fact that closeted gay men are easy to blackmail. Gays have always been suspicious of that rationale and perhaps they’re right.

The most damaging spies in British history were the Cambridge Five, also called “the “Magnificent Five”: Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, Donald Maclean and John Cairncross. They were highly placed members of British intelligence, all secretly working for the KGB.

The only one who wasn’t gay was Philby. Burgess and Blunt were flamboyantly gay. Indeed, the Russians set Burgess up with a boyfriend as soon as he defected to the Soviet Union.

The Magnificent Five’s American compatriot Michael Straight was — ironically — bisexual, as was Whittaker Chambers, at least during the period that he was a spy. And of course, there’s David Brock.

So many Soviet spies were gay that, according to intelligence reporter Phillip Knightley, the Comintern was referred to as “the Homintern.” (I would have called it the “Gay G.B.”)

Bradley’s friends told the Times they suspected “his desperation for acceptance — or delusions of grandeur” may have prompted his document dump.

Let’s check our “Gay Profile at a Glance” and … let’s see … desperate for acceptance … delusions of grandeur … yep, they’re both on the gay subset list!

Obviously, the vast majority of gays are loyal Americans — and witty and stylish to boot! But a small percentage of gays are going to be narcissistic hothouse flowers like Bradley Manning.

Couldn’t they just work for JetBlue? America would be a lot safer right now if gays in an “awkward place” psychologically could do no more damage than grabbing a couple of beers and sliding down the emergency chute.

Look at the disaster one gay created under our punishing “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. What else awaits America with the overturning of a policy that was probably put there for a reason (apart from being the only thing Bill Clinton ever did that I agreed with)?

Liberals don’t care. Their approach is to rip out society’s foundations without asking if they serve any purpose.

Why do we have immigration laws? What’s with these borders? Why do we have the institution of marriage, anyway? What do we need standardized tests for? Hey, I like Keith Richards — why not make heroin legal? Let’s take a sledgehammer to all these load-bearing walls and just see what happens!

For liberals, gays in the military is a win-win proposition. Either gays in the military works, or it wrecks the military, both of which outcomes they enthusiastically support.

But since you brought up gays in the military, liberals, let’s talk about Bradley Manning. He apparently released hundreds of thousands of classified government documents as a result of being a gay man in “an awkward place.”

Any discussion of “don’t ask, don’t tell” should begin with Bradley Manning. Live by the sad anecdote, die by the sad anecdote.

As tragic as the Haitian calamity is, it is merely symptomatic of a far deeper tragedy that’s completely ignored; namely self-inflicted poverty. The reason why natural disasters take fewer lives in our country is because we have greater wealth. It’s our wealth that permits us to build stronger homes and office buildings. When a natural disaster hits us, our wealth provides the emergency personnel, heavy machinery and medical services to reduce the death toll and suffering. Haitians cannot afford the life-saving tools that we Americans take for granted. President Barack Obama called the quake “especially cruel and incomprehensible.” He would be closer to the truth if he had said that the Haitian political and economic climate that make Haitians helpless in the face of natural disasters are “especially cruel and incomprehensible.”

The biggest reason for Haiti being one of the world’s poorest countries is its restrictions on economic liberty. Let’s look at some of it. According to the 2009 Index of Economic Freedom, authorization is required for some foreign investments, such as in electricity, water, public health and telecommunications. Authorization requires bribing public officials and, as a result, Haiti’s monopolistic telephone services can at best be labeled primitive. That might explain the difficulty Haitian-Americans have in finding out about their loved ones.

Corruption is rampant. Haiti ranks 177th out of 179 countries in the 2007 Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. Its reputation as one of the world’s most corrupt countries is a major impediment to doing business. Customs officers often demand bribes to clear shipments. The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom says that because of burdensome regulations and bribery, starting a business in Haiti takes an average of 195 days, compared with the world average of 38 days. Getting a business license takes about five times longer than the world average of 234 days – that’s over three years.

Crime and lawlessness are rampant in Haiti. The U.S. Department of State Web site (travel.state.gov), long before the earthquake, warned, “There are no “safe” areas in Haiti. … Kidnapping, death threats, murders, drug-related shootouts, armed robberies, home break-ins and car-jacking are common in Haiti.” The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade warns its citizens that, “The level of crime in Haiti is very high and the police have little ability to enforce laws. Local authorities often have limited or no capacity to provide assistance, even if you are a victim of a serious crime.” Crime anywhere is a prohibitive tax on economic development and the poorest people are its primary victims.

Private property rights are vital to economic growth. The Index of Economic Freedom reports that “Haitian protection of investors and property is severely compromised by weak enforcement, a paucity of updated laws to handle modern commercial practices, and a dysfunctional and resource-poor legal system.” That means commercial disputes are settled out of court often through the bribery of public officials; settlements are purchased.

The way out of Haiti’s grinding poverty is not rocket science. Ranking countries according to: (1) whether they are more or less free market, (2) per capita income, and (3) ranking in International Amnesty’s human rights protection index, we would find that those nations with a larger free market sector tend also to be those with the higher income and greater human rights protections. Haitian President Rene Preval is not enthusiastic about free markets; his heroes are none other than the hemisphere’s two brutal communist tyrants: Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro.

Haiti’s disaster demands immediate Western assistance but it’s only the Haitian people who can relieve themselves of the deeper tragedy of self-inflicted poverty.

We shall never surrender — unless the war gets too expensive, in which case, we shall quote Dwight Eisenhower on “the need to maintain balance in and among national programs” and then insist that “we can’t simply afford to ignore the price of these wars.”

The quotes are from President Barack Obama’s West Point speech announcing the Afghanistan troop surge. What a strange speech it was — a call to arms so ambivalent, so tentative, so defensive.

Which made his last-minute assertion of “resolve unwavering” so hollow. It was meant to be stirring. It fell flat. In August, he called Afghanistan “a war of necessity.” On Tuesday night, he defined “what’s at stake” as “the common security of the world.” The world, no less. Yet, we begin leaving in July 2011?

Does he think that such ambivalence is not heard by the Taliban, by Afghan peasants deciding which side to choose, by Pakistani generals hedging their bets, by NATO allies already with one foot out of Afghanistan?

Nonetheless, most supporters of the Afghanistan War were satisfied. They got the policy, the liberals got the speech. The hawks got three-quarters of what Gen. Stanley McChrystal wanted — 30,000 additional U.S. troops — and the doves got a few soothing words. Big deal, say the hawks.

But it is a big deal. Words matter because will matters.

Success in war depends on three things: a brave and highly skilled soldiery, such as the U.S. military 2009, the finest counterinsurgency force in history; brilliant, battle-tested commanders such as Gens. David Petraeus and McChrystal, fresh from the success of the surge in Iraq; and the will to prevail as personified by the commander in chief.

There’s the rub. And that is why at such crucial moments, presidents don’t issue a policy paper. They give a speech. It gives tone and texture. It allows their policy to be imbued with purpose and feeling. This one was festooned with hedges, caveats and one giant exit ramp.

No one expected Obama to do a Henry V or a Winston Churchill.

But Obama could not even manage a George W. Bush, who, at an infinitely lower ebb in power and popularity, opposed by the political and foreign policy establishments and dealing with a war effort in far more dire straits, announced his surge — Iraq 2007 — with outright rejection of withdrawal or retreat. His implacability was widely decried at home as stubbornness, but heard loudly in Iraq by those fighting for and against us as unflinching — and salutary — determination.

Obama’s surge speech wasn’t a commander in chief’s, but a politician’s, perfectly splitting the difference. Two messages for two audiences. Placate the right — you get the troops; placate the left — we are on our way out.

And apart from Obama’s own personal commitment is the question of his ability as a wartime leader.

If he feels compelled to placate his left with an exit date today — while he is still personally popular, with large majorities in both houses of Congress, and even before the surge begins — how will he stand up to the left when the going gets tough and the casualties mount, and he really has to choose between support from his party and success on the battlefield?

Despite my personal misgivings about the possibility of lasting success against Taliban insurgencies in both Afghanistan and the borderlands of Pakistan, I have deep confidence that Petraeus and McChrystal would not recommend a strategy that will be costly in lives, without their having a firm belief in the possibility of success.

I would therefore defer to their judgment and support their recommended policy. But the fate of this war depends not just on them. It depends on the president. We cannot prevail without a commander in chief committed to success. And this commander in chief defended his exit date (versus the straw man alternative of “open-ended” nation-building) thusly: “because the nation that I’m most interested in building is our own.”

Remarkable. Go and fight, he tells his cadets — some of whom may not return alive — but I may have to cut your mission short because my real priorities are domestic.

Has there ever been a call to arms more dispiriting, a trumpet more uncertain?

“Niki, I’m dying. Don’t have much to leave you. Just three envelopes. Open them, one at a time, when you get into big trouble.”

A few years later, first crisis. Khrushchev opens envelope 1: “Blame everything on me. Uncle Joe.”

A few years later, a really big crisis. Opens envelope 2: “Blame everything on me. Again. Good luck, Uncle Joe.”

Third crisis. Opens envelope 3: “Prepare three envelopes.”

In the Barack Obama version, there are 50 or so such blame-Bush free passes before the gig is up. By my calculation, Obama has already burned through a good 49. Is there anything he hasn’t blamed George W. Bush for? The economy, global warming, the credit crisis, Middle East stalemate, the deficit, anti-Americanism abroad — everything but swine flu.

It’s as if Obama’s presidency hasn’t really started. He’s still taking inventory of the Bush years. Just this Monday, he referred to “long years of drift” in Afghanistan in order to, I suppose, explain away his own, well, yearlong drift on Afghanistan.

This compulsion to attack his predecessor is as stale as it is unseemly. Obama was elected a year ago. He became commander in chief two months later. He then solemnly announced his own “comprehensive new strategy” for Afghanistan seven months ago. And it was not an off-the-cuff decision. “My administration has heard from our military commanders, as well as our diplomats,” the president assured us. “We’ve consulted with the Afghan and Pakistani governments, with our partners and our NATO allies, and with other donors and international organizations” and “with members of Congress.”

Obama is obviously unhappy with the path he himself chose in March. Fine. He has every right — indeed duty — to reconsider. But what Obama is reacting to is the failure of his own strategy.

There is nothing new here. The history of both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is a considered readjustment of policies that have failed. In each war, quick initial low-casualty campaigns toppled enemy governments. In the subsequent occupation stage, two policy choices presented themselves: the light or heavy “footprint.”

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we initially chose the light footprint. For obvious reasons: less risk and fewer losses for our troops, while reducing the intrusiveness of the occupation and thus the chances of creating an anti-foreigner backlash that would fan an insurgency.

This was the considered judgment of our commanders at the time, most especially Centcom commander (2003-2007) Gen. John Abizaid. And Abizaid was no stranger to the territory. He speaks Arabic and is a scholar of the region. The overriding idea was that the light footprint would minimize local opposition.

It was a perfectly reasonable assumption, but it proved wrong. The strategy failed. Not just because the enemy proved highly resilient but because the allegiance of the population turned out to hinge far less on resentment of foreign intrusiveness (in fact the locals came to hate the insurgents — al-Qaida in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan — far more than us) than on physical insecurity, which made them side with the insurgents out of sheer fear.

What they needed, argued Gen. David Petraeus against much Pentagon brass opposition, was population protection, i.e., a heavy footprint.

In Iraq, the heavy footprint — also known as the surge — dramatically reversed the fortunes of war. In Afghanistan, where it took longer for the Taliban to regroup, the failure of the light footprint did not become evident until more recently when an uneasy stalemate began to deteriorate into steady Taliban advances.

That’s where we are now in Afghanistan. The logic of a true counterinsurgency strategy there is that whatever resentment a troop surge might occasion pales in comparison with the continued demoralization of any potential anti-Taliban elements unless they receive serious and immediate protection from U.S.-NATO forces.

In other words, Obama is facing the same decision on Afghanistan that Bush faced in late 2006 in deciding to surge in Iraq.

In both places, the deterioration of the military situation was not the result of “drift,” but of considered policies that seemed reasonable, cautious and culturally sensitive at the time, but ultimately turned out to be wrong.

Which is evidently what Obama now thinks of the policy choice he made March 27.

He is to be commended for reconsidering. But it is time he acted like a president and decided. Afghanistan is his. He’s used up his envelopes.

President Obama’s speeches often claim “the time has come” for something, or “the days” of this or that “are over.” It’s as if his presidency has introduced a new epoch.

I used to think that invoking the vision of a new age was merely a rhetorical device to distinguish him from George W. Bush. Now I think it is something more – a way to make a very old philosophy sound new and failed policies of the past seem fresh and exciting.

The trope was in full view last week when the president spoke before the U.N. General Assembly. “The time has come to realize that the old habits, old arguments, are irrelevant to the changes faced by our people,” he intoned. But when he got around to presenting his new arguments and ideas, they sounded rather familiar.

Every policy and theme outlined in the president’s speech has been tried; most have failed. They only appear fresh because their failure happened so long ago that some of us have forgotten and others who don’t know history think them untried.

Take Mr. Obama’s “comprehensive agenda” to rid the world of nuclear weapons. This dream is as old as the first atomic bomb explosion. Arms control agreements have failed so many times, it’s hard to keep track of the failures. Despite all these agreements, North Korea and Pakistan managed to get their own nuclear weapons, and Iran is close behind.

Mr. Obama would have us believe that nukes have proliferated due to (a) a lack of good faith gestures by America (i.e., unilateral disarmament) and (b) a need for new agreements. But the problem with North Korea and Iran, who are merely the worst proliferators, is not the lack of agreements but their failure to live up to those they’ve signed.

Don’t get me wrong. When arms control negotiators are hard-headed, as Ronald Reagan was, agreements can be beneficial. The trouble starts when you can’t tell friend from foe, and you assume America is as much a part of the problem as, say, North Korea. In this version of “blame America,” Mr. Obama’s arms control approach is a throwback to the days of Jimmy Carter’s failed Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and Bertrand Russell’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) of the 1950s. The real disarmament target of the CND was not rogue states but the United States and Western powers.

Another already-tried idea of the president’s is “engagement,” which appears in many forms. It was particularly prominent in the U.N. speech, when he said he has “re-engaged” by joining the disappointing U.N. Human Rights Council.

Engagement is one of those words diplomats love, often adorned with such clever modifiers as “selective” and “constructive.” It can mean practically anything, but it sounds good because, whatever it is, it’s not war or conflict.

The hallmark of Mr. Obama’s engagement strategy was Iran. The sheer act of offering to talk was supposed to convince the Iranians to give up their nuclear program. It didn’t work. His Iran policy came crashing down last week when yet another secret nuclear site was discovered. He discovered what Mr. Bush learned when he and the Europeans repeatedly offered negotiations to the Iranians: They prefer to keep their program regardless of the incentives we offer.

Engagement should be a means to an end, not an end in itself. If circumstances are ripe for negotiations, by all means, negotiate. But if they are not, don’t pretend that repeatedly offering diplomatic talks and getting nothing in return will change anything. For countries like Iran and North Korea, the problem is not that we don’t respect them, but that they want something we don’t want them to have – namely, nuclear weapons.

If you value engagement more for what it promises, as Mr. Obama does, rather than what it delivers, then you will often err on the side of letting things slide. You can always excuse delay and deferral of solving hard issues because the cost of acting appears to be greater and riskier than no action. The problem, of course, is that sometimes no action is the riskiest strategy of all, as we saw in the years of neglect of al Qaeda that led up to Sept. 11.

This is a hard lesson of history. But if you make a virtue of forgetting that history, which is the president’s habit when he makes exaggerated claims about the benefits of engagement, then you not only lose a record of what has worked and what has not worked. You also lose a balanced view of what is possible and what is not.

A little modesty is in order, Mr. President. The “time has come,” indeed, not for recycling failed policies of the past, but to drop the pretense of ushering in a “new” age, which didn’t work out so well the last time it was tried.