Posted on 03/24/2011 4:38:05 AM PDT by neverdem
The Damning Contradictions of Obama's Attack on Libya
Obama's Libya policy seems unlikely to produce the desired results.
Let’s imagine that all goes well in Libya. The rebels, protected by air strikes, recapture lost territory and sweep into Tripoli. Moammar Qaddafi and his sons one way or the other disappear.
Leaders propose a democratic and secular constitution that voters overwhelmingly approve. The first act of the duly elected government is to issue a proclamation of thanks and friendship to the United States, Britain, France, and others who prevented Qaddafi’s mass slaughter.
Well, we can all dream, can’t we?
But in the cold light of day, none of these happy eventualities seems very likely. As one who hopes for success in this enterprise, I am dismayed by the contradictions in the course we are following.
Some three weeks ago, Pres. Barack Obama said Qaddafi “must go.” But the United Nations Security Council resolution under which we are acting stops well short of this goal.
Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen confirmed that Qaddafi may remain in power indefinitely. National Security Council staffer Ben Rhodes said, “It’s not about regime change.”
If not, then the purported purpose of the operation, to “protect civilians,” could be of unlimited duration. Libya might well be divided between a Qaddafi regime in the west around Tripoli and a rebel regime in the east around Benghazi.
Maintaining the existence of the latter will likely require military force. Obama has conceded that the United States is currently in command of operations, but says that command will be handed off to others in “days, not weeks.”
But news reports make it clear that the overwhelming majority of military forces in action are American. Putting a British or French officer in command will not change that. And putting U.S. forces under foreign command might weaken support for the enterprise here at home.
Obama’s policy is reminiscent of the old saying that a camel is a horse designed by committee. The policy satisfies advocates of humanitarian intervention, such as the National Security Council’s Samantha Power, who remember Bill Clinton’s regret that he didn’t intervene to stop the slaughter in Rwanda.
Unfortunately, in order to satisfy those who oppose anything smacking of unilateralism, it took time to get the U.N. Security Council to act, so that we missed the moment when it seemed possible that recognition of a rebel government or imposition of a no-fly zone would topple Qaddafi.
That delay gave him time to launch a counterattack that made him strong enough to withstand the limited military action that could get multilateral approval.
By accepting limits on U.S. involvement, Obama aims to satisfy skeptics of military action, like defense secretary Robert Gates, who publicly pointed out the difficulties of maintaining a no-fly zone. We have seen this before, when Obama announced his surge in Afghanistan together with a deadline for the beginning of troop withdrawals.
The result in Libya is a policy whose means seem unlikely to produce the desired ends.
In the process, this Democratic president has jettisoned some of the basic tenets of his party’s foreign policy.
“It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action,” candidate Obama said in December 2007. But Congress was not informed or, it seems, consulted in any serious way about this decision to take military action in Libya.
Instead, members of Congress, like the general public, heard the president make the announcement in Rio de Janeiro. That’s quite a contrast with George W. Bush, who sought and obtained congressional approval of military action in Afghanistan in September 2001 and Iraq in October 2002.
Since then, many Democrats have denounced Bush’s “rush to war” in Iraq. But military action there began a full five months after Congress approved it. Obama didn’t wait five days after the Security Council resolution.
Bush argued that intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq was in the national interest. Obama, who has made the same argument about Afghanistan, doesn’t seem to be making it about Libya. For some supporters of his policy, the absence of any great national interest makes it all the more attractive.
It’s not likely to remain attractive to American voters if it fails to result in the overthrow of Qaddafi and leads instead to an open-ended military commitment in a nation where our vital interests are not at stake.
But a better outcome is at least possible. After all, history shows that dreams sometimes do come true.
— Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner. © 2011 The Washington Examiner.
This is a lame UN Communist operation. Obama is just following orders from above.
Quadaffy Quagmire.
“For some supporters of his policy, the absence of any great national interest makes it all the more attractive.”
Barrone didn’t develop this idea well enough. There is a theme in this war that it is a good, selfless war fought for all the right reasons and since it is fought for all the right reasons, the end result will be good. Kind of an intellectual mid evil joust between the good knight and the black knight. It has NOT been thought through because their motivations are so good they just feel good about it.
1) What is Obama's Libya policy? What are the desired results? I don't think even he knows.
2) If you don't have a stated policy and haven't defined the desired results, it's pretty easy to claim that you met your objective.
Anybody who has followed the UN over the last 60 years knows that they repeatedly set up divided nations permanently at war, with the US wasting blood and treasure to maintain an untenible status quo, in perpetuity.
East Libya versus West Libya here we come, complete with demilitarized zone.
“It has NOT been thought through because their motivations are so good they just feel good about it.”
It’s a classic illustration of the maxim: “good intentions are not enough.” Unfortunately, progressives never learn this lesson (or have to relearn it every few years). They’re so sure they’re right that they are blind to the actual consequences of their ill-conceived policies.
Obamastan.
Damned incompetence.
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