More on Liberia: I've said previously that a chance to intervene in Liberia provides an opportunity for humanitarian good, coupled with an opportunity to advance U.S. interests. I see some agreement coming from expected and unexpected places. James Robbins is unexpected, but welcome:

Military intervention would have to be complemented with a political-reform effort, and probably some form of development aid. The nation-building effort would not be as expensive as that in Iraq, but would have to be undertaken as a long-term project. Of course there are risks involved in any such experiment — success is never guaranteed. But the future security environment will look radically different from that to which we have been accustomed, and we should start to get used to it. Liberia should be viewed not as a charity case but an opportunity.

More expected, but no less correct, is TNR arguing the humanitarian angle, and taking the opportunity to review its own consistent humanitarian-intervention angle vis-a-vis Iraq:

In a press release today touting his support for U.S. military intervention in Liberia--a fine and important thing--Howard Dean has revealed himself to be something of a moral pretzel. Mr. Dean says, "American military force should be committed only when American security interests are imminently threatened." Those interests, he insists, were not threatened in Iraq, but in Liberia "we face a challenge to our long-term security interests in West Africa." . . . Now, the threat to American interests in Iraq may not have been imminent, but there was certainly no less a threat than is to be found today in Liberia--where, aside from moral concerns, the United States has no interests whatever. As to Iraq not being an impending humanitarian catastrophe, Dean has a point: It was an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.

It would obviously be silly to think of an unstable West African nation as a slam dunk for intervention and nation building, and it would have to be handled much better than the ham-fisted Iraq occupation, which has managed to turn a mass of liberated serfs into angry, nationalistic thugs. But the fact that Liberia's citizens are calling on us for help should not be ignored. Liberia also dovetails with Bush's renewed vigor in non-Iraq foreign policy, as his African tour this week highlights. This is a chance to do something good, productive, and in our intersts, and in a neighborhood that could benefit from the stabilizing influence.

More: Ralph Peters makes his case too:

YOU could summarize Washington's traditional thinking about Africa in one word: Hopeless. Yet Africa may present the greatest strategic opportunity for the United States in the 21st century: We can do well for ourselves by doing good for others in Africa. Relatively small strategic investments, from health care through peacekeepers to fair trade, could pay disproportionate dividends for all.

It's worth reading the whole.