What Next in Libya?

UPDATE X: "Libya, in the wake of this damage, was a risk for President Obama. There were many reasons for not intervening — a third war in a Muslim country was not what America needed and the homegrown quality of the Arab Spring has been central to its moral force. But to allow Muammar el-Qaddafi to commit a massacre foretold in Benghazi would have been unforgivable.

The intervention has been done right — with the legality of strong United Nations backing, full support from America’s European allies, and quiet arming of the rebels. The Libyan people have been freed from a crazed tyranny. Unlike in Iraq, burdens were shared: America flew the intelligence missions and did the refueling while the French, British, Dutch and others did most of the bombing."

Read The New York Times, Score One for Interventionism.


UPDATE IX: "It’s remarkable how reluctant Obama’s opponents are to acknowledge that despite all the predictions that his policy of limited engagement could never work, it actually did." Read the Washington Post, Obama can't win for winning in Libya.


UPDATE VIII: "The fall of Tripoli is a foreign policy triumph for which President Barack Obama won’t hold a ticker-tape parade: no flight suit, no chest-thumping, no 'Mission Accomplished' banner.

But the low-profile, inexpensive ouster of Col. Muammar Qadhafi marks an important milestone for the administration, foreign policy analysts say — perhaps the most concrete evidence that the more modest American foreign policy approach that has become Obama’s hallmark and perhaps his biggest area of contrast with his more interventionist predecessor might actually work."

Read Politico, Libya a victory for 'leading from behind'?


UPDATE VII: And how was it done? Read The New York Times, Surveillance and Coordination [and Training] With NATO Aided Rebels.


UPDATE VI: Mission accomplished in Libya? Read The New York Times, Mystery of Qaddafi’s Whereabouts Looms Large in Conflict’s Endgame.

I guess the Republi-cons will be for the war again, after they were against it, after they were for it.

It is also interesting to compare the efforts in Libya to Iraq.

And it reaffirms my support for an openly debated and conducted assassination policy for rogue dictators.


UPDATE V: "Despite a fumbled communication strategy, President Obama is actually taking a prudent course in trying to undermine Qaddafi." Read The New York Times, The Defection Track., which suggests:

"There are three plausible ways he might go, which inside the administration are sometimes known as the Three Ds. They are, in ascending order of likelihood: Defeat — the ragtag rebel army vanquishes his army on the battlefield; Departure — Qaddafi is persuaded to flee the country and move to a villa somewhere; and Defection — the people around Qaddafi decide there is no future hitching their wagon to his, and, as a result, the regime falls apart or is overthrown.

The result is a strategy you might call Squeeze and See."

UPDATE IV: "Libya is just the first of many hard choices we’re going to face in the 'new' Middle East." Read The New York Times, Looking for Luck in Libya, which included this observation:

"There is an old saying in the Middle East that a camel is a horse that was designed by a committee. That thought came to my mind as I listened to President Obama trying to explain the intervention of America and its allies in Libya — and I don’t say that as criticism. I say it with empathy. This is really hard stuff, and it’s just the beginning."

UPDATE III: Why are Republi-cons undermining U.S. military and foreign policy objectives, after year of incessant moral blackmail regarding Iraq?

The U.S. has the power to do something constructive, and Gaddafi is good reason to try it.

He reaffirms my support for an openly debated and conducted assassination policy for rogue dictators.


UPDATE II: Damned when he didn't, and damned when he did, from the Washington Post:




UPDATE: "President Obama's bombing of Libya without congressional authorization or debate puts us on a dangerous path. A minimum standard for transparency in government is that the House and the Senate go on the record for or against a new war." Read the Christian Science Monitor, If Obama can bomb Libya, a President Palin can bomb Iran without Congress's OK.

"In the West’s preferred chain of events, airstrikes enable a democratic revolution. One expert expects the opposite." Read The New York Times, Hopes for a Qaddafi Exit, and Worries of What Comes Next.

Why? "[B]ecause there are two kinds of states in the Middle East: 'real countries' with long histories in their territory and strong national identities (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Iran); and those that might be called 'tribes with flags,' or more artificial states with boundaries drawn in sharp straight lines by pens of colonial powers that have trapped inside their borders myriad tribes and sects who not only never volunteered to live together but have never fully melded into a unified family of citizens. They are Libya, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The tribes and sects that make up these more artificial states have long been held together by the iron fist of colonial powers, kings or military dictators. They have no real 'citizens' in the modern sense. Democratic rotations in power are impossible because each tribe lives by the motto 'rule or die' — either my tribe or sect is in power or we’re dead." Read The New York Times, Tribes With Flag.