I’m not sure what the president’s plan is for Libya but one thing that is already obvious is that we’re not witnessing something that we’re used to seeing. I think Peter Beinart is probably onto something when he says that Obama is leading us into a post-America world. Whether you want to argue that this is because our country is so financially strapped, or because we’ve lost our appetite for costly military intervention, or because the president is secretly working to undermine American hegemony, there are a lot of people who are profoundly uncomfortable about seeing America act on the world stage in anything less than a clearly-defined leadership role.
President Bush broke faith with a lot of American values when he decided to buck the international community and invade Iraq with a minimum of allies, but the spectacle was something we were not unfamiliar with. We went in and overthrew the government, eventually handing its leader over to be hanged by his countrymen. We’ve done similar things in Panama and Grenada, and covertly, in Iran, Chile, Guatemala, and elsewhere. I think the American people are opposed to a ground war in Libya, but they’re simply unprepared for anything less than the removal of Gaddafi from power. They’re also unprepared for a situation in which the U.S. sits in a subordinate role while European powers behave fecklessly and stop short of using the force required to effect regime change.
There is a certain logic to what Obama is doing and has done. If we start with two simple considerations we can see how we got here. The first consideration was simply protecting civilian populations from Gaddafi’s tanks and air force. Either we did this, or we did not. The second consideration was winning some international consensus and support for protecting those civilians. We couldn’t win support without agreeing to limit the mission. When you take those two considerations together and add into it that we don’t have any strong national security interests in Libya and that we don’t want to take ownership of the country, and that we don’t want to spend the money or overextend our military, we wind up with a half-ass intervention that protects the civilians it was intended to protect, but lacks the teeth needed to lead to a stable situation or, at least, the removal of the immediate threat.
So, if nothing changes, I believe Obama will have blundered badly in Libya and he will pay an outsized political price for it. But that is not guaranteed. They are reports that members of Gaddafi’s entourage are looking for a way out. There is an assumption that Gaddafi won’t give up and his support will remain steadfast, and that his military advantage is too strong to be overcome by airpower alone. Those assumptions could prove to be false.
I hope so. There are elements to Obama’s strategy, as far as I can discern it, that are consistent with progressive critiques of foreign policy going back decades. Acting in concert with other nations, power-sharing, cost-sharing, having respect for international law, and putting more emphasis on humanitarian concerns are all progressive goals. So, we have a major interest in seeing this adventure turn out better than we have a right to expect.
But, in a case like this, allowing yourself to be hamstrung by the requirements of international consensus, power-sharing, and cost-sharing, could lead to two bad outcomes. One, which would be ridiculous, would be to split Libya in two and leave Gaddafi in power to devise some insane revenge. The other would be to get involved in arming the rebels in a protracted civil war that tears Libya to shreds and makes a mockery of our humanitarian intervention.
Gaddafi needs to go. If this plan causes him to go soon, it will be a model for the future and a vindication of the idea that the international community can exert power in the interests of human rights, no matter how muddled and messy the process. And that will signal a post-American world, in a good way. But it’s a big gamble, and America isn’t liking it so far.
Gadaffi was referred to the International Criminal Court by the UN.
Gadaffi threatened to attack other countries in the region and to kill large numbers of his own people.
It is an international concern.
Agreed. America (the United States) isn’t liking it because progressives are largely isolationist, unrealistically so, and the right wing opposes everything Obama does no matter what. The accurate term is not “post-American” it’s “post-hegemonic”. The right wing has a problem with post-hegemonic, whether or not Obama initiates it. But if we want global cooperation it’s necessary. The other route, the hegemonic, is that taken by Bushco and repub admins before, and we saw where that leads.
You put that so well.
Thanks.
“I think the American people are opposed to a ground war in Libya, but they’re simply unprepared for anything less than the removal of Gaddafi from power. They’re also unprepared for a situation in which the U.S. sits in a subordinate role while European powers behave fecklessly and stop short of using the force required to effect regime change. “
There’s something to what you say, but I don’t think you’ve quite hit the nail on the head. (1) Yes, the American people are definitely opposed to a ground war in Libya, or rather, to the USA being involved in a ground war in Libya. (2) “anything other than the removal of Gaddafi from power.” You mean similar to the situation after the first Gulf War? I don’t remember the “American People” complaining about that, I remember them being relieved that the war was so short. I do remember the neocons complaining about it for years until Bush II started the glorious second Iraq War.
(3) “In a subordinate position.” Yes, that is something new. First, it’s hard to get people to even believe it. But even if they do believe it, or if they admit it hypothetically, there seems to be a cognitive dissonance in that at one and the same time they don’t want us to be in the lead (yet another “foreign adventure”), yet they can’t compute the idea that we are not in the lead (sitting around waiting for the “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” to tell us what to do next?).
I think all the participants would like to see Gaddafi realize that he is, at the very least, stalemated, and that there is no point in dragging it out, the one rational choice is to say bye bye. Or, failing that, that he be captured by the rebels (but perhaps that is not possible). I think (as you point out) some of those around him already realize this, but Gaddafi (not unlike Hitler is this respect) may never accept it. Maybe there will have to be some sort of palace coup?
I understand why people demand to know exactly what’s going to happen, but the fact is, nobody knows exactly what is going to happen. As far as I can see, the goal is pretty clear — Gaddafi has to go (they can’t actually say that, but it’s obvious.) But how they reach that goal, or if they will get to it, is not clear. That’s not an uncommon situation in wars.
The reason I am not overly upset by all this is that I have been convinced all along that this war does not have the typical dynamic of the previous GOP wars, and that it is pretty much what it purports to be.
And once again, let’s not forget Syria. There could be a sectarian civil war there; al Qaeda will jump at that chance.
I’ll say that this intervention has thrown me for a loop. It seemed contrary to the pattern I had hoped the President had established.
Sometimes it may seem that I bend over backwards to explain some of the really screwy things the President does in order to exonerate him, but in truth it’s because it’s obvious to me he is nothing if not thoughtful and cautious.
So what I say is sort of wondering out loud, and I wonder if anyone has any thoughts. It’s clear to me that Obama really doesn’t see the world the same way that H Clinton does, and values Gates as a military advisor above all. I don’t think this is about Obama being afraid of the headlines when there was a bloodbath in Bengazi. The fact that he has often pooh-poohed the 24 hr news cycle publicly tells me that he usually ignores it, and when he gets the urge to play to it, as he must at times, he has someone sort of like an AA sponsor whom he calls to talk him off the ledge. “David? Can you imagine what the headlines will be? The way things are goin’, they’re gonna crucify me.” “Mr. President, remember, we don’t chase headlines, headlines chase us.” “Thanks, David. I knew you’d say that.”
My money goes on Obama thinking intervention would happen with or without the US, and his instinct to always and at nearly any cost have a seat at the table played a role. If the US wasn’t involved, the US would have a major world event going on in which it would have almost no influence, which he would see as contrary to US interest.
Another thing, and maybe I’ll write this up at some point, is that I see both the second Bush and Obama as seeing their Presidencies as post-hegemonic. I actually think Bush and Cheney both understood this in their way and that the neocons’ fantasies functioned, from their perspectives, instrumentally.
Bush and Cheney, unfortunately, had a very flawed view of how the world works. I remember reading somewhere that during the first Iraq War that Powell was shocked that Cheney was pushing military strategy based on popular history of the Civil War. Cheney was a dilettante who managed to get hold of the levers of policy. His view of history was based, like the idiot Victor Davis Hansen, on totally different historical periods than our own. He was a bullionist, replacing actual bullion with oil and pursuing a mercantilist colonialism, historically in reverse, in the 21st century. Historically in reverse, because rather than building empire he saw his project as a last chance to grab for control over oil. The results given this were predictable. Cheney’s pea brain simplifies the whole set of innumerable international relations we label power into one, which can be quantified into barrels of oil.
It seems to me that Obama has read Immanuel Wallerstein and knows that the best years for British people came once Britain dismantled its Empire. Clement Attlee’s government took funds from the maintenance of colonial empire and invested them in Brit Rail and National Health. That was what Obama wanted and still wants to do, but we have a political culture that not only opposes it but cannot conceive of such a possibility. He is hemmed in by other people’s greed (corporate power and their proxies in gov’t) and lack of imagination (your average Democrat in Congress). Having said he is aware that the former hegemon retains a seat at the table, to wit the Special Relationsip. This means the former hegemon still warmongers on occasion. Look at the Falklands. That said, Obama wants a post-hegemonic US to, no longer having to police the world, invest in its people.
No excuses for anyone, here, just trying to understand it.
Huh?
There, fixed.
I believe the latter assumption is almost certainly false. Gaddafi’s advantages in heavy armor, artillery, and air support will be gone in another week or two. That leaves him with a few thousand trained but lightly-armed soldiers. The mercenaries among them are going to cut and run. The rest may be better trained than the rebels but they are greatly outnumbered, and well-hated by most of the country. I don’t see this lasting more than a month or so, after which Gaddafi will either be hanging on a lamppost or will have fled.
The rats are already starting to desert this sinking ship .
I would agree. I don’t see Gadafi as being able at this point to lead the kind of popular resistance that would be necessary over the long haul. The Iraq War did remove Saddam Hussein from power, because the one thing on which Bush was right was that Hussein wasn’t popular. So too with Gadafi. Maybe once, but not for a long time. He’s starting this by requiring mercenaries. That’s not going to cut it in the long term.
I’m not suggesting, though, that foreign intervention is in any way necessary to see Gadafi go. I’m also not sure it will make his exit come sooner rather than later. Definitely, it will change the character of the end result for the worse.
I think this is profoundly misstated:
“I think Peter Beinart is probably onto something when he says that Obama is leading us into a post-America world.”
Beinart to his credit eventually gets to the point about the US being in two wars now already. He buys into the Republican “fiscal crisis” spin though too readily.
My point is that Dubya led the US into a post-hegemony world by overextending our military in two wars, cutting taxes and helping to induce the economic collapse through further deterioration of financial industry regulations.
Dubya led America here and Obama, pragmatic as ever, is just recognizing reality. Yes Obama has more respect for international law. But even for Obama, that is secondary compared to his reluctance to throw more money and lives into a unilateral war.
I’m curious if Immanuel Wallerstein is among what we read here. I don’t know of a better thinker for broad context. Here’s something very on point:
http://www.monthlyreview.org/0703wallerstein.htm
Thoughts?