Foreign Policy reports:
At the start of this week, the consensus around Washington was that military action against Libya was not in the cards. However, in the last several days, the White House completely altered its stance and successfully pushed for the authorization for military intervention against Libyan leader Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi. What changed?
The key decision was made by President Barack Obama himself at a Tuesday evening senior-level meeting at the White House, which was described by two administration officials as “extremely contentious.” Inside that meeting, officials presented arguments both for and against attacking Libya. Obama ultimately sided with the interventionists. His overall thinking was described to a group of experts who had been called to the White House to discuss the crisis in Libya only days earlier.
“This is the greatest opportunity to realign our interests and our values,” a senior administration official said at the meeting, telling the experts this sentence came from Obama himself. The president was referring to the broader change going on in the Middle East and the need to rebalance U.S. foreign policy toward a greater focus on democracy and human rights.
But Obama’s stance in Libya differs significantly from his strategy regarding the other Arab revolutions. In Egypt and Tunisia, Obama chose to rebalance the American stance gradually backing away from support for President Hosni Mubarak and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and allowing the popular movements to run their course. In Yemen and Bahrain, where the uprisings have turned violent, Obama has not even uttered a word in support of armed intervention – instead pressing those regimes to embrace reform on their own. But in deciding to attack Libya, Obama has charted an entirely new strategy, relying on U.S. hard power and the use of force to influence the outcome of Arab events.
“In the case of Libya, they just threw out their playbook,” said Steve Clemons, the foreign policy chief at the New America Foundation. “The fact that Obama pivoted on a dime shows that the White House is flying without a strategy and that we have a reactive presidency right now and not a strategic one.”
“This is the greatest opportunity to realign our interests and our values,” No the best way to “realign our interests and our values” would be to immediately stop the killing in all the countries our forces are doing so. In fact to pull out of these countries and return those forces to our shores. After that, immediately cease the funding and arming of tyrants and illegal occupiers and tormentors. Finally, our values would be better exemplified if we were to redirect our domestic economy away from the decades long project of funneling the nation’s wealth into the hands of a few whilst maintaining this insane MIC.
M. Smith, you basically took the words right out of my motuh.
Well said M. Smith.
M. Smith, well said.
You’re definitely not alone, Smith.
There is no such thing as “humanitarian intervention” in an empire.
Obama is a brand, nothing more…
Before emitting the usual cliches, with the usual expressions of total conviction, we should consider the hypothesis that Obama is handling the situation rather well. Since when is Foreign Policy an unimpeachable source and Steve Clemons a genius or even terrifically capable?
“But Obama’s stance in Libya differs significantly from his strategy regarding the other Arab revolutions,” says FP. Could it just maybe possibly be the case that there might be differences from one region to another, one country to another? Hasn’t, up to the now, the burden of sophisticated discourse been focused on precisely those differences?
Clemons opines: “The fact that Obama pivoted on a dime shows that the White House is flying without a strategy and that we have a reactive presidency right now and not a strategic one.” Just what need, obviously: adherence to a grand fixed strategic plan at a time when the situation on the ground is hyper-fluid and shrouded in uncertainty. Were Obama repeating fixed slogans, with splendid consistency, we’d be hearing how he’s failing to react to the dynamics. Stay the course and you’re hidebound; change the course and you’re unprincipled.
What this smells like is vacuity: cherry-pick your criticism to suit the moment. There’s always one you can rely on.
(1a) he’s rigidly failing to adapt
(1b) he’s turning on dime
(2a) he’s failing to grasp key differences
(2b) he’s being inconsistent
(3a) he’s dithering when action is needed
(3b) he’s acting without thought of the consequences.
It seems to me that picking from this menu is a reasonable critical strategy — it sounds principled, one or the other choice is always available, and you’re bound to look right some of the time.
In reality, Obama’s team has rapidly put together a package that has UN support, with the French and the British, and maybe some local forces, at the front lines. Right now, this looks smart, and it looks like he’s dealt effectively with the significant structural obstacles that stand in the way of doing anything but watching Qaddafi reduce his opponents to hamburger. In the near future, we’ll see how this shakes out. But for the moment, let’s wait for some evidence before we announce how things are and must be.
Hquain, how does that address M. Smith’s criticisms?