Foreign Policy

The tenuous situation in Libya poses a big dilemma for this administration. What baffles me is that it doesn’t have to be this way.

As the bombs fall and the missiles fly, it’s clear the world wants Gadhafi gone. Even the Arab League acknowledges that point. So for President Obama to state a similar line, there’s not much foreign policy wisdom flowing forth. Yet as congressional voices grow louder for clarity on “the mission,” this White House has turned to some pretty lame reasons for the U.S.’s presence over Libya.

“Humanitarian actions” to protect the citizens of Libya … Is that the best they can do? When the president states he wants Gadhafi deposed, that should be enough. And yet we have an administration that is stepping on its message by releasing statements in the name of protecting the people of Libya. A noble cause, yes, but to carry that logic through, then shouldn’t this country have acted sooner and not waited until the tyrant’s forces were about to deliver the deathblow to the opposition?

Had the president, the U.N. and the Arab League not acted when they did, the mass murdering dictator in Libya would have executed a mass slaughter that would have been a moral disaster for the world and a strategic disaster for the United States.

As Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and their parents, Ruth and Udi Fogel, were stabbed to death by terrorists in their home in Itamar, and 3-month-old Hadas had her throat slashed, France’s Sarko urged Obama to open fire on Gadhafi. These were parallel events, although we on the far perimeter of the world’s four corners might not have noticed what was going on in the center of the world. Nor did we notice when Palestinian militants in Gaza fired 50 mortar shells into Israel on Saturday, the heaviest barrage in two years.
 
“Slaughter of a sleeping baby is unacceptable as a tool in the struggle for any type of liberation. It comes from a dark place, from a place that simply wants to destroy you,” said Moshe Feiglin, an Israeli leader who wants Israel to turn “the state for Jews” into a “Jewish state.”

Taking a huge risk, the U.S. has joined a coalition at the U.N. Security Council that has voted for military action short of boots on the ground to end the bloodstained rule of Col. Moammar Gadhafi.

Make no mistake: Whatever the U.K. and U.S. governments say about this being humanitarian in nature, the resolution adopted last night was all about regime change and provides “all necessary measures” to do so. It’s an impressive achievement, avoiding a veto by Russia and China, which along with three other countries decided to abstain. But Germany — which abstained — invoked the “great risks” that could lead to immense loss of life, as well as a protracted military conflict that would affect the wider region.

Two overviews dominate American influence on Israel: the one emerging from that old Pepsi commercial, of a bunch of waifs holding little candles in some kind of world concert, singing, “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony." This is Team Hillary, with help from Bono and Bill. They want to turn back to the 1990s. The other is the Kagan/Kristol axis, who send their littles, like Charles Krauthammer, to the major media. Loosely called the neocons, it is a small group with a big vision, a vision of America suited to 1946. They want to turn back to the 1980s.

Israel, like China and Germany, has moved solidly into the second decade of the 21st century, and both these views put Israel in jeopardy. The Hillary/Bono people see no distinction between Moses and, for example, Moammar Gadhafi — we are all the same inside. The others really see the world with important places like America and Israel and a few unreliable friends, surrounded by dangerous enemies. This is a version of the British “frogs and wogs” variety.

Vice President Joe Biden is in Russia, lecturing officials there on the need for reform but emphasizing his earlier and friendly metaphor, echoed by his boss Barack Obama, that it is time for the U.S. to “push the reset button” in its relationship with Russia. While in Moscow, Biden also met with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

While Biden is in Moscow, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee. He tells visibly stunned senators that the biggest threats to our nation are Russian and China. Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) suggests that in his opinion, Iran and North Korea are more menacing to the U.S.

A lot has been written and said recently about the United States’ position with respect to the Libyan government’s conflict with its people. The situation on the ground is near levels of full-scale civil war. And after this weekend, it appears Col. Moammar Gadhafi is taking back what many rebels captured in the initial throes of this campaign.
 
That’s unfortunate, and I would argue certainly not in the best interests of the U.S., nor for stability in the region. Concepts of “the devil I know …” are continuously brought up when comparing the tyrant to what could replace him in that leadership vacuum.
 
But the potential for terror far outweighs any downsides of a leaderless Libya, at least in my mind. And for these reasons, the United States should begin to get more engaged in the region. A few reasons:

The Romans twice ran Libya.

The first time, they brought the Libyans a “Golden Age.” As Wikipedia puts it: “As a Roman province, Libya was prosperous, and reached a golden age in the 2nd century AD, when the city of Leptis Magna rivalled Carthage and Alexandria in prominence. For more than 400 years, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were wealthy Roman provinces and part of a cosmopolitan state whose citizens shared a common language, legal system, and Roman identity. Roman ruins like those of Leptis Magna, extant in present-day Libya, attest to the vitality of the region, where populous cities and even smaller towns enjoyed the amenities of urban life — the forum, markets, public entertainments, and baths — found in every corner of the Roman Empire. Merchants and artisans from many parts of the Roman world established themselves in coastal Libya and the province was greatly 'Romanized' ... "

... What we are doing, or accomplishing, or aiming for, in Afghanistan.

... What defines victory, or the end of our involvement, in Afghanistan.

... What is our way out (“exit strategy” is the term the pros use) when wars have only one way out — victory — which we can not define after nearly a decade there.

... What we might use the money we are spending in Afghanistan for to solve problems in the United States.