Libya Asks NATO to Defend Transition to Sharia Law: What Should NATO Do?

The United States and NATO allies (but mostly the United States) helped destroy Moammar Gaddafi's Libyan military leading up to his death last week. Libya's interim transitional government wants NATO to stay and protect the country as it rebuilds as an Islamist nation with Sharia Law.

NATO's 26,000 sorties, including 9,600 strike missions, destroyed about 5,900 military targets since they started on March 31. These included Libya's air defenses and more than 1,000 tanks, vehicles and guns, as well as Moammar Gadhafi's command and control networks.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday that some of Libya's leaders had called for NATO to continue its mission "during this interim as they try to establish some new governance." -- Star News Online
The United States helped decapitate Gaddafi's forces and created the vacuum that the Islamic extremists in the region want to fill with revolution similar to that of Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979. Iran now leads the world in state-sponsored terrorism and will soon get nuclear weapons that it promises to use. We've created the mess in Libya, and we should help clean it up -- but not by supporting an Islamic Sharia government.
Libya's new leaders said they intend to make Islamic Sharia law the main source of legislation and will nullify any laws that contradict its tenets, giving the country a more Islamist character in the post-Moammar Gadhafi era.
Islamic law, or Sharia, is enshrined as the basis of the constitution in a number of Middle Eastern countries with Muslim majorities. Most Gulf nations' constitutions state that Sharia is a main source of legislation, while Egypt says it is "the source." -- AP
America got itself caught in the middle -- between supporting civil rights and instituting a theocracy that will abuse civil rights.
[Leon Panetta] said the immediate U.S. concerns in Libya are focused on the possibility of providing medical assistance to Libya's wounded and preventing weapons from falling into the wrong hands. Of particular concern are anti-aircraft weapons.
Questions also persist about the nature of the new Libya and the degree of Islamist influence in a government now led by National Transitional Council leader Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, who said Sunday that Islamic Sharia law would be the main source of legislation, that laws contradicting its tenets would be nullified, and that polygamy would be legalized. -- Military.com
Panetta refers to the anti-aircraft missiles that have "gone missing" and probably have ended up in the hands of Al Qaeda, who can now use the weapons against passenger airliners and NATO fighters according to this ABC News report:

President Obama supported the regime change -- and now we must follow through with it. We cannot employ the 'strategy' of "Hope and Change" for foreign policy. We need real world solutions, which means hard, mature, tough decisions like influencing another country's future. We cannot abandon the process of an "Arab Spring" and Hope it turns into a democracy. We know Libya won't turn into a democracy on its own -- they've told us so. The interim government said it will institute Sharia law, which means more human rights abuses. Didn't we support the regime change because of human rights abuses? Do we just want to let one regime replace another and continue the atrocities? Worse -- America may support the institution of Sharia law in Libya.