Mission Indefinite?

Since the first Tomahawk missile was launched at Libyan air defenses at the beginning of the weekend, there has been almost non-stop talk about what the mission of the coalition bombing Libya IS in practice, and what a potential end-state would look like. The president tried to lay that out, full stop, on Friday, but it's done nothing to cease the chatter -- and hand-wringing -- since.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, appeared on a number of Sunday shows to reiterate the president's line:

"This is a very specifically focused limited military mission to provide for -- to create the no-fly zone, to ensure that we protect the civilians in Libya and provide for the humanitarian support with force authorized in accordance with the United Nations Security Council resolution," Mullen told CNN's Candy Crowley.

Mullen did not rule out the possibility of Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi staying in power. But as the British paper The Guardian noted Sunday,

"The Pentagon line contrasts with the more hawkish line in Britain, where David Cameron has insisted Gaddafi needs to go.

That's also the outcome Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) pushed for in a separate interview with Crowley. The pair -- two out of the self-labeled "three amigos" along with Lindsey Graham (R-SC) -- have been by far the most aggressive voices on Capitol Hill pushing for military action in Libya.

"Once the president of the United States says as President Obama did that Gadhafi must go, if we don't work with our allies to make sure Gadhafi does go, America's credibility and prestige suffers all over the world," Lieberman said.

The limited nature of the mission is also facing pushback from lawmakers who are at the other side of the debate on Libyan intervention. Senate Foreign Relations ranking Republican Dick Lugar of Indiana worried Sunday on Face the Nation that the humanitarian rationale was not enough to prompt military involvement, and could create a dangerous precedent.

"We must get this straight from the beginning or there’s going to be a situation in which wars linger on country after country, situation after situation, all of them on a humane basis," Lugar said of the mission's definition.

Lugar raised the situation in Bahrain. I would add Cote D'Ivoire to that list, which seems to have fallen completely off the radar, but is on the brink of a civil war that could be equally bloody and equally destabilizing to a region that can ill afford it. For some reason, nobody seems to be connecting the dots between that situation to our current actions, but I, for one, think the comparison is apt.

A number of House GOP leaders raised the same points as Lugar in press releases out Sunday.

It doesn't seem to have taken very long for the initial unity of purpose -- displayed both in Washington and internationally -- after Thursday night's UN resolution to begin to wear off ...