International Affairs

You may not agree with him, but you must admit: President Obama made the case for American intervention in Libya strongly and clearly.

He told us why he authorized the use of military force, at the request of the Arab League and the United Nations Security Council: to stop the slaughter of the Libyan people by Gadhafi’s forces.

He reported our success so far in stopping Gadhafi in his tracks and turning all operations over the NATO. The U.S. will now continue our involvement only in a supporting role.

And he spelled out our ultimate goal: to continue diplomatic and financial pressure on Gadhafi until he is forced out of power — without using the U.S. military to achieve regime change.

President Obama had a Bush moment last night. But I’m not talking about George W. Bush. I’m referring to his father. Obama’s explanation of why he won’t back the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi under a U.N. resolution was all about the limits of war by committee — the same constraints that prevented the military coalition put together by George H.W. Bush from going all the way to Baghdad in 1991.

It is often said that G.W. Bush decided to topple Saddam Hussein to make up for his father’s “failure" to overthrow the Iraqi dictator in the first Gulf War. In his speech last night, Obama pointed out that regime change in Iraq “took eight years, thousands of American and Iraqi lives, and nearly a trillion dollars. That is not something we can afford to repeat in Libya. Read more...

Poor Newt Gingrich. Hopefully he’s out of traction now and fully recovered from the self-inflicted whiplash stemming from his conflicting views of what the U.S. military role should be in Libya. It sure was spectacular to see Newt, as he vies for his party’s nomination to challenge the president, twisted in knots as he tried to take both sides of the debate.

You see, Newt was for the U.S. involvement in enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya before he was against it.

Newt’s embarrassing contortions exposed the fallacy of the right’s obscene obsession with undermining the president and hoping for his (and the country’s) failure at every turn. It demonstrated the shortcomings of the “Agenda of No” practiced by Newt and his Newtonian lemmings in Congress. And it revealed that the Republican’s “no reason” policy on Libya — meaning it isn’t based in reason — ultimately will fail as the president continues to outline his vision and his authority.

The Canadian government fell today in a vote of no confidence, clearing the way for spring elections.

What could be interesting to watch in this is the Canadian temperament or the Canadian condition. I live near Canada and do not think Canadians are boring. I think they are endlessly fascinating and are to Americans as loons are to ducks, they being the loons. But something they always have to watch out for: the subliminal drive to be just like Americans. It is a denial of Canadian character. There you find a PM who resembles Reagan, then one who resembles Kennedy, and born-again Stephen Harper, walking in the footsteps of George W. Bush. And they held with him a long time.

Is it possible to imagine that Bashar al-Assad, the British-educated Syrian leader, will be deterred from following his father’s example, which stamped out the cries for freedom in his country?

What a prize that would be: a democratic Syria. Forget Libya, Syria has huge geo-strategic implications because of its relations with Iran, Lebanon, Hezbollah and Hamas. Regime change would have an enormous impact on Israel and Iran.

The Assad family from the minority Alawite sect succeeded in engineering a dynastic succession where fellow Baathist Saddam Hussein (and now Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak) failed. But hopes of reform and cooperation nursed by the U.S. and Britain, which tried to engage with Bashar, were dashed. All Western attempts to peel the Syrians away from their Iranian allies have failed.

Even if this military conflict does not technically require congressional approval, is it not in the president’s interest to get political cover from Congress?

Whether you agree or disagree with the wisdom of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush got near-unanimous congressional approval before he embarked on those campaigns. During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Obama stated that America should only go to war with congressional approval.

Has President Obama lost touch with the people who put him into power? His ardent Muslim supporter, Minister Louis Farrakhan, said of Obama recently, “Who the hell do you think you are,” trying to remove Gadhafi from power? Perhaps Lord Acton’s axiom, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” once again proves to be true. Or perhaps the president thinks his allegiance to the international community is greater than his allegiance to the American people and the U.S. Constitution.

For those who still see Bill — I mean Obama — as the center of the “global village” called Hillaryland, it will come as a shock that France wants to secede. All Bill — I mean Obama — has now in the “global initiative” are Haiti, Ireland and one or two others in its NATO military arm. But he’ll always have Nantucket.

Say goodbye to the comforting cant and familiar phrases like “coalition of the willing,” “leader of the free world,” “the court of popular opinion” and the “forces of good” (the phrase of Hillaryland Master Chief Anthony Weiner, who compares taking action in Libya to preventing the Holocaust) and of course the “Clinton Global Initiative” and all the happy-face lies and make-believe we use to make global policy, with their insidious totalitarian underside. Sarko wants to cut loose. He ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more. Say hello to the French Foreign Legion.

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?

I guess it was predictable that Obama would face complaints on Capitol Hill about his handling of the Libya military intervention.

But what was less predictable was the international reaction from his fair-weather friends who voted with the U.S. last week to impose one of the most powerful resolutions adopted in recent years — at their urging. As soon as the first bombs started falling, they held up their hands in horror.

First up was Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League (and presidential candidate in Egypt), who complained that the bombing had gone beyond the terms of the resolution, which called for the establishment of a no-fly zone and “all necessary measures” to protect civilians in Libya.

President Obama says that Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi “has to go.”

The question that pops up in my mind is: “Go where?”

I don’t think our president has an answer for that question. I think the president is winging it.

The administration did a good job of getting the Arab League to agree to let us start bombing Libya. They did a pretty good job of getting the U.N. to look the other way.

They forgot one crucial group, though: the Congress.