I don’t follow your logic because NATO is not doing the same thing in Egypt, Syria, and Yemen. I could argue that this is why the violence is increasing.

Lybian oil was important to Europe only because it has the shortest and therefore cheapest delivery route. Oil is a market commodity having the same price everywhere and the Europeans can buy it elsewhere just as easily. The choice of suppliers is made by the oil companies: not by governments.

But I think that the violence in those places is increasing because the original causes have not been resolved. The same people who were behind the dictator are still holding the power in Egypt. In Syria the army is stronger and more professional than was the case in Lybia, and it will be impossible for irregular revolutionaries to beat it. Yemen has been a basket case for so long that it is difficult to see an increase in violence.

So why is NATO not doing the same thing in those places. My guess is because it finally realizes that if it did so it would probably get stuck there as we did in Iraq, and they are in Afghanistan. Syria is a big country having big problems that will require big solutions – bigger than Afghanistan. In the present financial climate neither Europe nor the USA can afford to help those who are trying to thow out the tyrants.