The American Spectator : Losing in Libya?

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Losing in Libya?

By Robert Stacy McCain on 4.8.11 @ 6:08AM

Obama’s policy has led to a stalemate against Gaddafi.

Scarcely three weeks after the U.S. military launched Operation Odyssey Dawn, the war in Libya is beginning to look like President Obama’s worst failure to date. While official Washington and the political press have been focused on budget negotiations and the prospect of a federal government shutdown, a foreign-policy disaster has been slowly unfolding in the deserts of the North African nation that Col. Moammar Gaddafi has ruled for more than four decades.

It was more than a month ago, during a March 3 press conference, that Obama declared his intent to “send a clear message: the violence must stop; Muammar Gaddafi has lost the legitimacy to lead and he must leave.” Gaddafi hasn’t left yet, nor has the 68-year-old dictator indicated any intention of leaving any time soon, and the military actions of the United States and our allies do not seem calculated to force Gaddafi from power.

Least of all does Gaddafi’s continued rule seem jeopardized by the poorly armed and ill-organized Libyan rebels. Since March 28, when the Benghazi-based rebels had advanced far enough west to threaten Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte, they have retreated more than 200 miles. The rebel retreat has entailed their loss of the oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Brega on the Mediterranean coast in eastern Libya and, as of Thursday, it appeared the rebels might even be on the verge of retreating from their forward base at Ajdabiya, 50 miles east of Brega. Further west, meanwhile, the rebels were grimly holding onto parts of Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city, under a relentless siege by Gaddafi’s forces.

Army Gen. Carter Ham, head of U.S. Africa Command, told a Thursday hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the military situation in Libya has developed into a stalemate. Gen. Ham’s assessment may actually be a bit optimistic, as there were reports yesterday of “mass panic” among the rebels near Ajdabiya and their total defeat seems more likely than a decisive victory over Gaddafi’s army.

The military shortcomings of the Libya rebels were dramatically illustrated last weekend when Geraldo Rivera of Fox News accompanied a group of fighters toward the front near Brega and came under fire. After being pinned down and then nearly left behind when the rebels retreated, Rivera angrily huffed that he was “as worried about getting shot in the back by the good guys as I was getting shot in the front by the Gaddafi forces.” Describing the “absolute disorganization” of the rebels, whom he called an “unruly gang,” Rivera warned against giving them additional arms: “I swear to God, if you give these people weapons more powerful than they have right now, they will be a grave danger to themselves and others.” Nor was Rivera alone in this low estimate of the rebels. Another reporter in Libya described them as “a hapless bunch” armed with a “mishmash” of weapons “which few of them know how to use.” Despite worries that the rebel forces are influenced by al-Qaeda operatives or other Islamic jihadists, their alleged extremism is clearly no substitute for military competence.

Military competence also seems in short supply among our NATO allies whose air power was supposed to keep Qaddafi’s forces in check. Last weekend, a NATO strike mistakenly killed 13 rebels and there was another reported NATO friendly-fire incident Thursday which knocked out some of the rebels’ precious few tanks and killed several more opposition fighters, prompting one angry rebel to ask, “Why did they do this? Do they want Gaddafi to win?”

It’s a fair question. The problem, of course, is that the United States and NATO have intervened under terms that (officially at least) require a sort of agnostic approach toward the outcome of the fighting between Gaddafi’s forces and the opposition. When the U.S. launched Operation Odyssey Dawn on March 19, it was in fulfillment of a United Nations Security Council “humanitarian” mandate, to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya and prevent Gaddafi’s regime from slaughtering civilians. So while Obama has made various bellicose declarations — “The noose has tightened around” Gaddafi, whose “days are numbered,” the president told CBS News last week — achieving regime change in Libya is not part of NATO’s UN-approved mission. Such are Obama’s self-proclaimed “core principles” in seeking to avert a “potential humanitarian crisis” on behalf of “the entire international community,” as he explained at a March 21 press conference.

Obama’s eloquent expressions of his commitment to multilateralism aren’t much help to the ragtag rebels fighting Gaddafi’s army. Neither did the rebels derive any military gain from the decision this week of Italy to join France and Qatar in extending diplomatic recognition to their interim government, the Benghazi-based Libyan National Council. Obama’s admirers who have sometimes compared their idol to John F. Kennedy might not find the comparison so flattering, now that the president has stumbled into a situation that is beginning to resemble the botched 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

The most tragic aspects of this situation are playing out in the sands of North Africa, where anti-Gaddafi fighters are dying for an increasingly forlorn hope. (The military stalemate may result in something very much like Roger Kaplan’s proposed idea for the partition of Libya.) While hardly comparable to the suffering of the Libyans, the domestic political consequences of Obama’s foreign-policy failure are not to be underestimated. Many of his liberal supporters were dismayed by the president’s resort to military intervention, and the prolonged conflict in Libya — is it too soon to call it a “quagmire”? — has helped push gasoline prices closer to $4 a gallon. Libya ranks only 18th among nations in terms of oil production, but the loss of its 1.5 million barrels per day is not insignificant, and crude oil is now trading at prices not seen since September 2008. Some analysts expect prices to reach as a high as $150 a barrel later this year, and at least one Democratic consultant has said the spike in fuel prices is a “mortal peril” to Obama’s re-election prospects.

None of this is to say that the situation in Libya is entirely hopeless. Gaddafi’s regime is being squeezed by economic sanctions, there are reportedly shortages of food and other necessities in Tripoli, and the dictator might be ousted next week or next month, for all we know. Three weeks into the first American military intervention of Obama’s choosing, however, the prospects are not encouraging. The best support that New York Times columnist Tom Friedman could offer for Obama’s Libya policy was his prayer that the president would be “lucky.” That was on March 29, when anti-Gaddafi fighters still controlled Ras Lanuf and Brega. One report late yesterday described a rebel retreat that had turned into a “stampede” from Ajdabiya toward Benghazi. And so it appears that Obama’s luck may be running out in Libya.

About the Author

Robert Stacy McCain is co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party (Nelson Current). He blogs at The Other McCain.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (34) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Kenny| 4.8.11 @ 7:01AM

I heard on the radio that Gaddafi forgives Obama, who Gaddafi calls his 'son' and fellow Muslim, for attacking Libya.

Gaddafi says he understands B. Hussein Obama's motive for attacking Libya. It's to help his re-election effort which, according to the Lion of the Desert, is a worthy objective.

Prester john| 4.8.11 @ 7:47AM

We need to continually remind our liberal friends that this adventure was brought to us by the most brilliant man to have ever been elected President and his sidekick, the smartest woman who was ever born. And after we remind them of that, we need to ask them what the vote in Congress was that authorized this party.

Ken (Old Texican)| 4.8.11 @ 8:12AM

If you have not actually lived in the middle east, you simply cannot comprehend the day to day grinding hopelessness of the vast majority of people there.
It breaks your heart, and they have built their own 'jail cells' around themselves. 'Jail cells' of the spirit. Those of you who have read my novel, Texas Said No! (to Sharia Law) can attest to my underlying overwhelming pity for them.
Oh,
bye the way, those of you who bought Texas Said No will get the sequel sent to you at no charge in a day or two.
You can see the new book cover and reviews at
www.americaalonesaidno.com

I have wrapped both books into one cover, and it was finally released last night.

bluecollarbytes| 4.8.11 @ 8:34AM

Can it be said that 'Obama's policy has led to a stalemate against Gaddafi, ' a stalemate in record time, not like those long drawn-out stalemates of the past ?

this is sumpin else Obama can brag on

Ken (Old Texican)| 4.8.11 @ 9:17AM

Mr. McCain,
Like you, I cannot identify the "good guys" in this mess.
You know, after all the ink and electrons spilled, in the final analysis we have given the Iraqis and the Afghans......"an opportunity" for a hugely better life.
I wish the poor bastards the best. Libya? FUBAR! from the get-go.

Shermans riding again!| 4.8.11 @ 9:22AM

And where is the liberal outcry of stop the war? (silence) Is there another peace price avalible for out intreped leader?

IMKessel| 4.8.11 @ 10:00AM

Unlike JFK, BHO, aka King Zero, has never served in the military. He does not understand how to properly use our military might. In speeches he has paid lip service to the military, but his words are belied by his poor management of our military. Obama is adding to demonstrable incompetence at the expense of human lives, American and otherwise.

davelnaf| 4.8.11 @ 10:46AM

It’s still something of a surprise that the community organizer-in-chief organized this fiasco. It's less surprising that he has tried to disorganize his way out of it. It would have been bad for the rebel forces either way. But the Bamster’s intervention and now bug out is likely to make this thing end more badly for them than it would have otherwise. This will cost Obama the rest of his foreign policy bank account that a person gets just for being elected POTUS. One wonders if Al Qaeda will see this as a defeat or, as the Bamster is likely to do, blame it on Bush, too?

J.C.Eaton| 4.8.11 @ 11:20AM

Unless one had a HIGHLY refined appreciation for the sanctity of life and the tragedy of seeing millions of them thrown away in ignorance,desperation, and utter hopelessness, one would find this column utterly hilarious. A worthless psycho screaming and spitting orders, bromides, and vitriol all the while dressed in a crazy-quilt of laughable tribal garb on one side. And "The Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight" on the other. The latter bolstered by the dismally incompetent "coalition." Probably none among either bunch contains even one mentally well adjusted soul who would be willing to coexist with their Israeli brethren. Talk about wasted American energy. Probably lots of Americans are rooting for both sides! What our inappropriately named CinC in the theatre ought do is study this howler for lessons-learned from both sides: from the rebels: how not to run a revolution. From Whack-job: how to prosecute a counter-insurgency. Good luck all around.

cicero| 4.8.11 @ 11:52AM

Amatuer incompetence vs. Ruthless professionalism, and that just describes the leadership.

vtwin| 4.8.11 @ 11:53AM

“Scarcely three weeks after … the war in Libya is beginning to look like President Obama's worst failure.” Sure McClueless, but only when compared to Bush 10-years-of-war success in Afghanistan.

Occam's Tool| 4.8.11 @ 11:58AM

FDR was for the enlargement of American Power, as was HST. When did Liberals change into vtwin and Obama?

Intelligent Design| 4.8.11 @ 12:00PM

The U.S. coming to the defense of the Libyan rebels in their effort to oust Gaddafi is similar to the U.S. government attacking Al Capone to defend George "Bugs" Moran, except it is much worse. The Libyan rebels are an extension of al Qaeda, the terrorists with whom we are at war ... the same guys killing American soldiers. So Obama is spending hundreds of millions of dollars and risking the lives of our soldiers to give aid and comfort to the enemy. This is the definition of treason, and he should be impeached.

The United States should get out of Afghanistan, get out of Iraq, and stay out of Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, etc.. This would save the lives and limbs of our troops and hundreds of billions of taxpayers' money. Our so-called "leaders" are apparently too dumb to figure out that it is to our advantage if Muslims are fighting and killing other Muslims. Islam is subversive to secular law, including our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Congress should identify Islam as a subversive political ideology and organization. Immigration to the U.S. by Muslims should be halted. Mosques should be outlawed. Muslims should be banned from U.S. airports and airplanes. Islam is about the merger of the state and so-called "religion" to the exclusion of religious and personal freedom. Muslim countries have one thing in common: lack of freedom.

If the U.S. government wants to bomb something, it should bomb Iran's nuclear sites, or bomb Hamas Palestinians in Gaza ... the terrorists who have launched about 8,000 rocket and mortar attacks against our ally Israel in the past five years.

Are our Congressmen so dumb that they think the Islamic government of Afghanistan, or the Islamic government of Iraq, or the Islamic government of Egypt, or the Islamic government of Libya will ever be "allies" of the U.S.? The goal of Islam is to undermine secular law such as ours, and destroy freedom everywhere.

Our politicians and media would have us believe that there is a distinction between Islamic extremists and "moderate" Muslims. This is totally false. One is either a Muslim or one is not, sort of like a woman being pregnant. Islam is not even a religion, since true religions oppose evil, whereas Islam embodies evil.

ABNCP| 4.8.11 @ 12:22PM

So now we know how this incompetent boob we have as a President and his mulit-national military cooperation really works. Turn everything over to the U.N. yeah right that plan has really worked in the past. Tell that to the poor bastards in Rwanda, Kosovo, The Congo, etc. The the U.N. tells NATO, go getum. That of course means the U.S. military. So our great leader says were in, oh wait a minute, were out. That leaves it up to the French. Really the French. The Brits have cut their armed forces down to where the Argentines are starting to think they can get the Falklands back. The Germans, now that they know the Red Army is not going to come pouring through the Fulda Gap are only interested in the Mark and thank you very much but no thanks. Let's not even start with the Italian military. Gaddafi must be laughing his head off. Unless some U.S. special ops types find him and kill him he ain't going anywhere. Then of course our dumb ass Attorney
General will turn over heaven and earth to find out who did that deed and put them on trial for war crimes. Proably in New York City. Hooray for another chapter in the comic tragedy of the Obama Presidency.

Bob Grant| 4.8.11 @ 12:30PM

It's time to end this experiment in the middle east. Bush led a valiant effort 10 years ago but it has failed. Sure, we gained much intelligence on the mindset of the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, about which we previously only had an educated guess, but paid a hefty cost in blood and treasure.

I'm not going to they are a lost cause, but we can never close the gap of our cultural differences to forge any real alliances. What we've learned is they be our allies in the short term when it suits their long term goals.

Libya will be the same.

We will achieve nothing being involved there.

Pull up stakes in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Now Libya , send our troops home and drill baby drill from Florida to California.

Martin Owens| 4.8.11 @ 1:04PM

How can we say we're losing when we never had a clear idea what winning was supposed to look like?

Wayne | 4.8.11 @ 1:15PM

I am still waiting to see evidence of Obama's great intelligence. Any doubt he is a product of affirmative action? He can not lead, because he can not listen. He is too busy being impressed by his own ideas to listen to anyone elses.

Conservatives, especially those neo-cons need to take a look at the man, and not just the idea. Any attempt to win by Obama would have to lead us down the trail of his progressive vision of the future. So even if it is the war on terror, or the war in Iraq or the war in Libya or the war in Afganistan or the war on drugs, it is all aimed at his view of US reductionism and UN imperialism.

MikeN| 4.8.11 @ 3:49PM

Libya's population is equal to New York. I don't think a military failure is that likely.

chris haynes| 4.8.11 @ 5:07PM

If you really want the US wants to bomb be bombing stuff, why not the abortion mills at home. They are far worse than those Hamas Palestinians in Gaza. And our planes wouldnt burn as much gas getting there.

Of course neo-con heros Guilliani, Scott Brown, and Lieberman wouldnt agree, being promoters of legalized mass murder.

Dixie Pixie| 4.8.11 @ 6:32PM

Kudos J.C Elton
You Nailed it.

Now that a hard fast strike by professional military to take Qaddafi out has been ruled out, all that is left is stalemate.

To break the stalemate will require Special Forces trainers and arms to professionalize the Libyan Rebels.
Logistics personal will be required to move the equipment, munitions and personal.
Of course that will require conventional military forces to guard the arms and munitions depots.
The road convoys and air fields will also have to guarded less the natives help themselves to a mobile supermarket of weapons.

The increase in personal in Libyan will give a lot of targets for Qaddafi to attack.
That will require the Army to protect those targets.
The Army will wisely request the use of armored forces to minimize causalities.

Under the current conditions defined by Obama, it is only a matter of time that the US Military will have Armored Divisions in Libya.
Since Obama and his allies will not allow the use of military force to kill or capture Qaddafi then the bleeding will continue indefinitely.
That means a order of magnitude more suffering than leaving the Libyan Rebels to their fate in the first place.

Why Obama did not bribe Qaddafi to leave for exile using the confiscated billions remains a mystery.

Roy| 4.8.11 @ 7:04PM

And then if we do kill Qaddafi and take over ourselves the question will be if we can head off another "insurgency".

Leveut| 4.8.11 @ 10:04PM

Just a thought.

Some leftists, was it Cloward and Pivens, proposed destroying systems by overloading them.

It is well known that US leftists hate the US military. Given Iraq and Afghanistan, and the stress put on the military by them with extended and repeated deployments and overuse of equipment, perhaps Libya is being intentionally set up to add to the burden, and thus, finally, to break the military. And if Libya isn't enough, another to follow.

Just a thought.

Alan Brooks| 4.8.11 @ 10:43PM

You are as pleased that this campaign isn't working out well as your opponents were pleased Bush's wars were stalemated.
How much schadenfreude you possess that you would even ignore your own country's efforts.

westie| 4.9.11 @ 5:26AM

Alan Brooks, tilting against windmills much....there's not enough schadenfreude in the universe for the hypocrisy of the Peace Prize winning War Monger, War for Oil-ista, Illegal War, failed strategist that you and fools like you have boosted into the CIC. Your tears of remorse are SWEET, ...yoohoo! Could there be an impeachment in the future?

Claypoole| 4.9.11 @ 9:25AM

Dixie Pixie, you are correct. We will see our soldiers on the ground in Libya. That they would not be sent in eventually was just another of Obama's lies.

I understand that the increasing price of gas is a hardship on many, but sometimes I think a $5 gallon would be worth it to defeat this disastrous, corrupt president.

Glein| 4.9.11 @ 12:46PM

Looks like the "odyssey" has given "dawn" to a partitioned Libya. On one side you have "rebels" also known as Al-Qaeda, and the other side you have an evil meglomaniac, terrorist, dictator. This was all for humanitarian purposes? How is this humanitarian to the people of Libya who are now to be ruled by not one terrorist muderer but two groups of terrorist murderers?

Stefan Stackhouse| 4.9.11 @ 6:47PM

There was a time - difficult to remember now, but only about six weeks ago or so - when the Free Libyians were on a roll, and it looked like they might actually succeed in overthrowing Gaddafi. I wrote to President Obama, and posted everywhere I could, that if we had only supplied the Free Libyians with a duffle bag full of satellite phones (and we probably had a supply just gathering dust in some back room at the State Dept or CIA), that would have given the Free Libyians some badly needed communications capability. We would then also have been able to pass on to them some real-time intelligence on the positions and movements of the regime forces. This would have been non-lethal aid that we could have even turned off remotely if it ever fell into the wrong hands. The risks were virtually zero. I don't know whether or not that would have been the tipping point that assured complete victory of the Free Libyians, but there was a narrow window of opportunity when it just might have been. We had a chance to see that monster off with no air strikes, no military involvement on our part, not even arming the rebels with weapons that could fall into the wrong hands. Even if Gaddafi found out about it, who would have given a damn? Zero risk.

And yet, the Obama administration was too paralyzed with fear to seize even this almost zero cost, zero risk opportunity, and so that window of opportunity closed. We'll never see it open again, it is too late for that. Now, what they've got over there is a civil war that will go on for years, and can come to no good end. There is virtually anything we can do that is not high cost and high risk. Furthermore, there are high risks associated with our doing nothing.

Richard Nixon was famous for pointing out that the Chinese character for "crisis" combines the concepts of "danger" and "opportunity". Obama's problem is that he only sees the danger, never the opportunity. It is a common flaw that one sees in unexperienced people who are inadequately prepared for the responsibilities of leadership. Unfortunately, that's what we've got in the White House.

Alan Brooks| 4.9.11 @ 11:39PM

Obama had to do SOMETHING to a guy who called his opponents (thus his entire people by association) cockroaches, mice, rats.

Alan Brooks| 4.9.11 @ 11:41PM

Remember, Gaddhafi said "no mercy", an affront to all your allegedly Christian principles.

Old Guy| 4.10.11 @ 12:19PM

Obama's policy is akin to the atheist at a Notre Dame - Southern Methodist football game. He doesn't know whether he really wants either team to win.

Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 10:33PM

is good

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