Former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton waged an illegal war in Libya that created a vacuum into which all sorts of terrorists flooded, thus helping Islamic State destabilizing the region. It has always struck me as odd that Clinton was never asked about this in the presidential debates, and that Obama seems to have made this war — on which he was campaigning right up until Benghazi — not stick to him.

But this war should be part of Obama's legacy, and shame, for the reasons above, and also for harming our ability to deal with North Korea. That's one lesson from this excellent piece on the tyrannical regime:

In recent talks, when Americans have asked whether any combination of economic and diplomatic benefits, or security guarantees, could induce Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons, the answer has been no. North Koreans invariably mention the former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. In 2003, when Qaddafi agreed to surrender his nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, Bush promised others who might do the same that they would have an "open path to better relations with the United States." Eight years later, the U.S. and nato helped to overthrow Qaddafi, who was captured, humiliated, and killed by rebels. At the time, North Korea said that Qaddafi's fall was "a grave lesson" that persuading other nations to give up weapons was "an invasion tactic."

Libya wasn't as big, as deadly, or as long as the Iraq War, but it still deserves more infamy than it gets.

Timothy P. Carney, the Washington Examiner's commentary editor, can be contacted at tcarney@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears Tuesday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.