Before President Obama’s Monday evening Libya speech,
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell posed four questions he
hoped the president would answer. Obama gave partial and
unconvincing answers to two and left the other two
unaddressed.
Instead, the president spent nearly half an hour trying —
and failing — to make a cogent argument for U.S. military action
for humanitarian purposes and presenting the Obama Doctrine
justifying risking American blood and treasure “when our safety is
not directly threatened.”
McConnell’s questions were ones which many, not least many
members of Congress in both political parties, want answers
to:
• Will
America’s commitment end in days, not weeks, as the president
promised?
• What will be the duration of the non-combat operation,
and what will be the cost?
• What national security interest of the United States
justified the risk of American life?
• What is the
role of our country in Libya’s ongoing civil war?
Regarding U.S. involvement in military operations, the
president offered only a rehashing of his prior statements and
re-emphasizing his desire to turn America from leader to
equal-at-best participant in most ongoing combat:
I said that America’s role would be limited and that we
would not put ground troops into Libya. That we would focus our
unique capabilities on the front end of the operation. And that we
would transfer responsibility to our allies and partners. Tonight
we are fulfilling that pledge.
NATO has taken command of the enforcement of the arms
embargo and the no-fly zone. Last night, NATO decided to take on
the additional responsibility of protecting civilians. This
transfer from the United States to NATO will take place on
Wednesday.
UPDATE: In a sign of NATO’s view of Obama’s vaunted
leadership, a NATO diplomat announced on Tuesday morning that the
alliance’s takeover of Libyan operations would be
delayed until Thursday, in part so allies might
modify their levels of participation based on a Tuesday conference
about Libya.
Obama said that the U.S. will “play a supporting role” in
ongoing operations and that the “risk and cost of this operation to
our military and taxpayers will be reduced significantly.” He
neglected to explain, however, how this transfer furthers the
military mission, focusing instead on “international partners,” “a
broad coalition,” and an “international mandate,” as if ensuring
that a few diplomats getting along for an extra week is more
important than secondary considerations such as winning.
In other words, America’s commitment remains undefined in
both time and cost despite Obama’s hiding behind NATO’s
skirt.
The answer to a question of the length and cost of
non-combat operations was even more evasive: “While our military
mission is narrowly focused on saving lives, we continue to pursue
the broader goal of a Libya which belongs not to a dictator but to
its people.” Obama explained what he expects the U.S. to do
following combat operations:
We will deny the regime arms, cut off its supplies of
cash, assist the opposition, and work with other nations to hasten
the day when Gaddafi leaves power. It may not happen overnight as a
badly weakened Gaddafi tries desperately to cling on to
power…history is not on Gaddafi’s side.
This answered McConnell’s last question of our likely
role, but not the critical question of duration and
cost.
And again, he emphasized the value he puts on “work[ing]
with allies and partners so they bear their share of the burden and
pay their share of the costs.”
On one hand, it is a welcome change to hear the president
show some concern for cost to taxpayers, not least because the
Pentagon said on Monday that the U.S. has spent at least $600
million on Libyan operations so far, of which about $270 million
was for 191 Tomahawk missiles and about $60 million to replace an
F-15E fighter that last week crashed near Benghazi after a reported
malfunction.
On the other hand, why is the president only concerned
about saving money when it comes to military action, whereas the
cost to taxpayers was irrelevant during his historic piling up of
deficits and debt during his first two years in office? Obama noted
that Iraq has cost us “nearly a trillion dollars” and “that is not
something we can afford to repeat in Libya.” It’s too bad he thinks
we can afford to repeat it in D.C., Detroit, and every place he
wants to put a high-speed rail station.
The issue of America’s national security interest that
would justify our involvement in Libya brought out the true
internationalist in President Obama. Rather than give an honest
answer, “oil,” which he probably doesn’t actually understand or
believe, the president gave three basic answers to why America had
to get involved in Libya: The “international community” wanted us
to, civilians were at risk, and we didn’t want to see Libyan
refugees “strain[ing] the peaceful yet fragile transitions in Egypt
and Tunisia.”
The president said, trying to justify the use of the
American military by a theoretical and emotional plea, “as
president I refuse to wait for images of slaughter and mass graves
before taking action.” He tried to Americanize the story by saying
that Benghazi, the city against whose residents Gaddafi had
threatened “no mercy,” was “nearly the size of Charlotte.” Oh, now
I understand why we spent half a billion dollars in a
week.
Obama also suggested that our not stopping Gaddafi’s
assault on his own people would mean that “the democratic impulses
that are dawning across the region would be eclipsed by the darkest
form of dictatorship as repressive leaders concluded that violence
is the best strategy to cling to power.” One has to wonder what
other conclusion those leaders will reach due to our involvement in
Libya. Perhaps it’s “If we’re going to attack our own people, we’d
better do it faster than old Moammar did.”
His final justification for U.S. action was perhaps the
most disturbing: Without us, “the writ of the United Nations
Security Council would have been shown to be little more than empty
words, crippling that institution’s future credibility to uphold
global peace and security.” At least I think it was his final
justification; I missed his next sentence because I was laughing so
hard.
None of these, even with the president’s repeated crowing
that our “leadership” in Libya has “see[n] that the principles of
justice and human dignity are upheld by all” would meet the
standard of our national strategic interest as defined by any
serious thinker, much less any serious thinker at the National
Defense University from which Obama gave his speech. One would have
thought he’d have learned more while at that fine
institution.
As if all that weren’t bad enough, the last minutes of
Obama’s address were what will likely be termed the “Obama
Doctrine,” basically saying that he is willing to use our military
“when our safety is not directly threatened, but our interests and
our values are.” Unfortunately, it is very difficult to define
“interests” outside of safety, particularly in the Middle East for
a president who has a pathological dislike of oil. And going to war
over “values,” well that should trouble even those Americans who
believe they share Obama’s values.
Beyond his evasiveness regarding basic questions to which
the country wants straight answers, Obama’s speech showed a
continuing incoherence regarding the mission in Iraq:
While Obama argued for “a Libya which belongs not to a
dictator but to its people,” he then pushed back against those who
argue for an explicit mission to remove Gaddafi: “Of course there
is no question that Libya and the world would be better off with
Gaddafi out of power. I along with many other world leaders have
embraced that goal and will actively pursue it through non-military
means.”
It’s no wonder that the president can’t and won’t give a
prediction on when our involvement will end or how much it will
cost. His refusal to understand the only possible definition of
success in Libya, namely the removal, dead or alive, of Gaddafi
from that country, all but ensures a bloody, chaotic quagmire
unless a Canadian NATO general does what Obama won’t. (Wagers,
anyone?) Furthermore, such a quagmire will be even less tolerated
by our allies’ voting publics, meaning that one ally — and when
we’re talking about the UAE and Turkey, we have to use that term
very loosely — after another will likely drop out, leaving the
U.S. having to take back a larger leadership role in a mission
without end.
And then there was Obama, the permanent campaigner. Before
suggesting that his approach to Libya is not aiming at regime
change because “To be blunt, we went down that road in Iraq,” the
president was at his indignant best: “For those who doubted our
capacity to carry out this operation, I want to be clear, the
United States of America has done what we said we would
do.”
But no serious argument was made against our involvement
based on a potential inability “to carry out this operation,” at
least as far as the early military action was involved. Instead the
arguments were about an unclear mission with an unknown definition
of success risking American prestige (which is strategically
important, and not just for Americans’ collective ego) by
aggressively giving up leadership to such courageous forces as the
French and the Arab League.
Fortunately for those of us who analyze Barack Obama’s
words on a regular basis, our job was made much easier by his
inclusion of the phrase “I want to be clear.” In Obama-speak, that
phrase always precedes a statement which is either a misdirection
or a lie, as the president somehow believes that making his worst
arguments clearer will somehow make them better.
If Barack Obama went after Gaddafi with the fury with
which he slew straw men in his speech, maybe we really could end
America’s involvement in Libya in days rather than
weeks.
Despite Senator McConnell’s excellent cues for Barack
Obama to follow, the president’s Monday speech on Libya left as
much confusion, both about today and about the future, as it
resolved. One thing we learned with certainty, however, is that for
this president having an international consensus is more important
than having a true strategic interest.
