A question for Wilsonian idealists

Samantha Power is a strong Wilsonian interventionist within the Obama administration. VERY strong:

Per this story, she's apparently so powerful, and perhaps so worrisome to Team Obama's PR on interventionism, that she wasn't made available for an interview for the story, as this indicates:

Precisely what parts of the unfolding policy (in Libya) Power advocated or opposed aren't clear. She declined a request for an interview, and White House officials declined to comment on her role.

On the political fallout issue, here's her POV:

Power has long argued that politicians shy away from humanitarian intervention because they see too much domestic political risk with little payoff for saving foreign lives. ...

The prevailing political theory in the United States, Power said, is that "you don't get any extra credit for doing the right thing," that U.S. casualties for the sake of humanitarianism cost politicians power and support. "It's up to us on the outside" to change that calculus, she said.

Beyond the domestic political risk, let's take a look at a nut graf:

After the publication of "A Problem From Hell," Power said in a wide-ranging 2002 discussion with Boston interviewer Robert Birnbaum that she believes "there is a moral obligation to do something about gross human rights violations" even if they don't meet the definition of genocide.

But, to do WHAT? And, by what moral calculus do we judge what to do?

Why Bosnia but not Uganda, back in Clinton Administration days? Was it white and European vs. nonwhite and African?

Why Libya and not Yemen today? Is it oil or the lack thereof? Or, with Bahrain, the fact that we have such a military presence there already as to be semi-intimidating without further effort?

Along those lines, if any intervention is done in the name of "international stability," first thing I am going to do is check how much oil that country produces.

And, sorry, Ms. Power, but the U.S. checkbook isn't unlimited. Are you going to dun the rest of the UN every time you decide the U.S. should intervene somewhere? Are you, per a Bob Herbert, going to try to sell the American public on every price tag? Or, like Bush with his two wars, will you not only not ask Congress for declarations of war, but will you try to run every intervention "off budget"?

Remember, the French Revolution started not just because of bad harvests, but because Comte de Vergennes had bankrupted France ... by intervention, intervention in the American Revolution.

Beyond the finances, what about human lives, especially when it becomes clear that air power may make a Roman-style, if temporary, "desert" out of mini-Carthages, but, it won't quell unrest on the ground. Will you try to sell that cost to the American public?

And, again, on what utilitarian calculus? Libya's level of unrest IS just about the same as Yemen's. So, why are we there?

How great a level of civil unrest is "permitted"? Is an "Obama doctrine" forthcoming?