Sarkozy helped swing the US and UN into acting against Libya - and President Obama was happy to let Sarkozy lead the way, but that doesn’t mean that French interests are the same as US interests - and some of it has to do with geography, with electoral politics and trying to recapture French glory.

But while Sarkozy’s zeal may have been helpful in rousing an international coalition to intervene, that same passion could cause headaches in Washington. The American efforts to limit and clearly define the effort to stop Qadhafi in his tracks and — leaders hope — end his rule may well depend on the decisions of the impulsive Sarkozy, for whom Libya is both a crisis in his backyard and, analysts say, a political opportunity.

One central difference between Paris and Washington is the issue of geography. Libya may be a strategic interest for the United States, but a crisis there presents a more immediate challenge for France and other European countries, which buy Libyan oil and gas and fear yet another wave of North African refugees.

“What Sarkozy saw was that Qadhafi has leverage that could make him horribly troublesome for everyone — energy, inmmigration, terrorism,” Vaise said. “And these would be directed at the Europeans, not the Americans.”

But Sarkozy also has an opportunity to recapture some of the international glory that has marked the high points of his presidency, and restored France’s sense of its own ability to punch above its diplomatic weight, as when he negotiated a 2008 ceasefire between Russia and Georgia. That image of international command, central to the narrative of his rise to power, had suffered badly this year when he was forced to fire his foreign minister for her close ties to a Tunisian dictator whose fall Sarkozy’s government largely overlooked.