None of which turns it into a dichotomy between the US instigating the intervention from the outset by instigating the uprisings at the outset and the US being against the intervention all the way and being somehow pushed into doing it against its will.

Different people will use different mental models of how much freedom of action various actors have to find different positions in the range in between more or less plausible ... but both extreme ends of the range are implausible, and so a false dichotomy forces a choice between two implausible alternatives.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.