In an interview with Univision Tuesday, President Obama re-defined the term "exit strategy," and said our exit strategy in Libya would begin this week.

"The exit strategy will be executed this week," President Obama said, "in the sense that we will be pulling back from our much more active efforts to shape the environment. We will still be in a support role. We will be supplying jamming, intelligence and other assets unique to us."

Planes in the air? Ships in the Mediterranean? Intelligence being provided? Doesn’t sound like an exit strategy at all.

... From the beginning of this suddenly-announced military campaign, the White House has been making great efforts to under-sell the US role and emphasize the participation of European allies and Arab partners. Even those Arab partners like the UAE that ultimately didn’t contribute military assets as White House officials say they had been led to believe.

Last week the President said "the United States will contribute our unique capabilities at the front end of the mission to protect Libyan civilians, and enable the enforcement of a no-fly zone that will be led by our international partners."

Sarkozy's idea of grandeur differs from de Gaulle's or Mitterrand's, however. The two former presidents saw themselves as students of history, men with long views of the national interest. Sarkozy is a creature of the moment who has always lived by the daily news cycle. Risk quickens his pulse and whets his appetite. He first came to prominence as mayor of the Paris suburb of Neuilly, when a madman with a bomb held a preschool classroom hostage. Sarkozy entered the room, talked the bomber into surrendering, and emerged to waiting cameras with a child in his arms. Crisis is his element.

... Gaullist grandeur may prove elusive if the fighting in the desert fails to go as planned. To be sure, French planes were the first to bomb targets around Benghazi, even before the U.S. cruise missile strikes on air defense sites. But the reality is that the French and British, who are supposed to bear the brunt of the action, do not have the "force projection" capabilities of the United States. The engagement has already gone well beyond enforcement of a no-fly zone to include action against Libyan armor and artillery. The poorly trained rebels may need a good deal more close support, unless the intervention persuades Qaddafi's mercenaries that the risks of fighting on now outweigh the benefits. But even if the mercenaries quit, loyalist Libyan troops would remain in the field, and the rebels' ability to defeat them even with air support remains to be demonstrated. Finally, even if Qaddafi is toppled, Libya's future will be determined by what unfolds in the aftermath, and France will have to contend with other interested parties for influence over that process. In short, France's intervention may serve to underscore the limits of the French global reach, even in a region where it was once a dominant player. [my emphasis]