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Killing Muammar Qaddafi wasn’t easy. What President Obama said would take days wound up taking eight months. At first the administration did not seem to understand that NATO’s objective of protecting the civilians rising up against the Libyan tyrant’s 40-year rule would require capturing or killing the man who was most likely to harm them. Unfortunately, the learning curve here seems to be something of a yardstick for Washington’s understanding of the Middle Eastern state most likely to kill Americans​—​the Islamic Republic of Iran.