WEBF, you may have left a few friendly countries off your list for Yemen, a simple check of the old school atlas shows that Saudi Arabia and Oman aren't very far away, and they would be very interetsted in containmennt of their neighbour I think.
As for sailing the fleet to save Libya I think we may have a slightly over inflated view of the power of the coctail party. Of course it may have helped if we hadn't been courting Gadaffi for all these years just to get some oil contracts secured.
The bottom line is that we can't substitute military might for failings in good old fashioned diplomacy. We have forgotten how to do that bit so much that may explain the desire to collapse the military. No dog, no fight.