Since when did America’s “best interests” include keeping the French and British fully supplied with Libyan oil?

(The Hill) — No sense of precedent guided President Obama’s decision to intervene in Libya, administration officials said Monday.

“We don’t make decisions on interventions based on consistency or precedent,” said Denis McDonough, the administration’s deputy national security adviser, amid an off-camera gaggle of reporters. “We make them based on how we can best advance our interests in the region.”

McDonough was speaking hours before President Obama’s speech Monday night on Libya. He explained that there were compelling reasons to get involved in Libya as opposed to Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria, four other countries in the Middle East where pro-democracy crowds have battled authoritarian governments.

Administration officials wouldn’t outline the contents of Obama’s speech, and McDonough’s remarks suggest Obama is unlikely to lay out any doctrine encompassing the administration’s philosophy for intervening in foreign conflicts.