President Obama has found ‘viable’ middle ground in pursuing action in Libya

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Earlier this week, we were all introduced to the course catalogue for the upcoming fall semester. Typical reactions ranged from euphoria to apathy to disappointment to murderous rage. Essentially, the usual. For many of us, course registration is a pretty stressful time. It is one of those few, distillable, landmark moments where we actually have to contemplate and direct the appropriate subsequent steps in our education. Nearly all of us are concerned with choosing classes that will assist in the completion or unearthing of prospective majors. Some of us are struggling to remember why we chose a certain major to begin with; others are preparing to mutiny against the departments in which they are currently housed; and still others, somehow, are struggling to fulfill the tiny number of unobtrusive distribution requirements that Bowdoin mandates.

Half-Assed

President Obama has found ‘viable’ middle ground in pursuing action in Libya

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Judah Isseroff

Columnist

April 1, 2011

In a speech given Monday night, President Obama attempted to clarify his philosophy on military intervention. He laid out what the United States has done to this point in Libya and then attempted to respond to his innumerable critics by explaining his rationale for American intervention. In doing so, the president showed himself to be a man of strong conviction.

To begin with, President Obama lauded our troops for effectively stopping the progress of Qaddafi's forces. He declared that the popular uprising that seemed destined to galvanize Libya into an overthrow of its longtime dictator would not end in violent repression. On the other hand, in choosing to pursue a military option in Libya, the president seemed to come precariously close to emulating the catastrophic mistakes of his predecessor's administration.

By enforcing a no-fly zone in Libya, the United States has committed military personnel and resources to a third Muslim nation. At the time of each of the incursions, all three nations had a non-democratic form of government in place: dictators in Iraq and Libya, and the theocratic Taliban in Afghanistan.

Is American action in Libya another example of the deadly combination of democratic hubris and ignorance of the make-up of foreign nations? Are they still attempting to export American brand democracy without being asked?

I think the answer to both of these important questions is a full-throated no.

In his speech, President Obama made two important points, one direct and one implied. The first was that military action in Libya was precipitated by an unprecedented coalition of willing partners. Unlike Iraq, other members of NATO were even more eager to give assistance to the Libyan rebels than was the United States. See: the French. Surprising, I know. And, unlike both Afghanistan and Iraq, the West was actually asked by a party inside the country for assistance.

Furthermore, the Arab League fully backed (until some of them did not) the United Nations Security Council resolution calling on member states to prevent the death of Libyan civilians at the hands of government forces. As a result of the strength and expanse of this coalition, it seems unlikely that the United States will once again feel the lonely isolation of trying to rebuild a Muslim nation without help from the outside or from within.

Oops. Did I say that we would be trying to rebuild Libya? Must have been a Freudian slip. That is the other tremendous difference between the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan and the current mission in Libya. That was also the conspicuously implied crux of Obama's speech on Monday evening. We will not be state building again. Hooray! As the president so smartly put it, "broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake."

President Obama, in his characteristic way, has found the middle ground once again. He determined two options to be entirely unacceptable. The first and perhaps most appealing option was to do nothing. He could have said that this country had learned its lesson from its past two wars and was going to remain decidedly inactive in the face of a brewing civil war in Libya.

Conversely, the president could have truthfully labeled Colonel Qaddafi a ruthless dictator and decided to take on the burden of removing him from power and embarking on the painful process of democratizing Libya. In all earnestness, in the wake of the last decade this second option was truly an unlikely course to be pursued. However, as God would have it, there are Republican members of Congress so woefully intractable that they have begun to insist that the United States stop at nothing to remove Qaddafi.

Ultimately, President Obama found a viable and intelligently moderate course of action. Certainly, this president was unwilling to shoulder the incredible human and fiscal course of a third war. However, he did say the following:

"To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and—more profoundly —our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action."

The above statement demonstrates the sort of leadership whose absence everyone lamented in the aftermath of the tragedies in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Simply put, America's action in Libya is what genocide preemption actually looks like.

President Obama has taken seriously the obligations incumbent upon the resources and military of the world's foremost superpower. Thus, we have taken action in Libya. However, this time around we have honed our understanding of our obligations and taken steps that are not injurious to the international standing of the U.S.

If only Obama could always act without needing to consult Congress.

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