President Obama announced his re-election campaign Sunday in a carefully orchestrated media event. Conservatives — especially those of us who spoke out against Obama’s war of choice in Libya before it began — should greet the announcement with the heartfelt “we told you so” the president has richly earned. On March 3, Obama pronounced a U.S. policy of regime change in Libya, saying terrorist dictator Moammar Gadhafi had to go. Two weeks later, Obama’s administration helped France and Britain get a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing a no-fly zone and an arms embargo in the interests of protecting Libyan civilians from Gadhafi’s military.
One day after that, I wrote that our interests in Libya were insufficient to justify military intervention.
Obama then joined French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Triple Entente No-Foam NATO Latte, sending U.S. aircraft and ships to join those of France and Britain to enforce the U.N. resolution.
Now we are nearly three weeks at war over Libya (or, in the White House formulation, at “kinetic military action”). Let’s take stock of how hope and change are going in North Africa.
On the positive side, all we can say is that — at least so far — no American lives have been lost. In his speech last week, Obama announced success in preventing a humanitarian disaster in the form of Gadhafi’s promised massacre of rebels in the city of Benghazi. That is true, at least for now. But for how long will it be?
We know that Gadhafi — despite the no-fly zone and the U.S., British and French aircraft in strikes against Gadhafi’s forces — has driven the rebels eastward. At last reports, Gadhafi’s artillery was shelling the rebels’ position in Misrata, which has apparently been cut off. Heavy fighting was going on near oil port at Brega, just a few miles south of Ajdabiya and only about 50 miles from the rebels’ final stronghold in Benghazi.
The ill-equipped, ill-trained and badly organized rebels asked for a cease-fire late last week, which Gadhafi rejected immediately. Why should he agree to a cease fire when he is, quite apparently, winning?
By last week’s end, the White House was apparently at wit’s end. The rebels are weak, divided along tribal lines, and the White House is reportedly resigned to a stalemate that leaves Gadhafi in power in most of Libya with the rebels holding out in Ajdabiya and Benghazi.
Even if a stalemate can be achieved (which requires a sufficient defeat of Gadhafi’s forces to compel his assent) it can only be maintained as long as the NATO forces, including U.S, ships and aircraft, keep Gadhafi at bay. The moment they leave, Gadhafi will commence slaughtering rebels wherever he thinks they may be.
Obama’s misadventure in Libya failed for two reasons. First, he violated the most basic American rule: That we only use military power when our national security interests are imperiled.
Second, Obama is compounding the mistake that President Bush made with his failed nation-building strategy by fantasizing a post-Gadhafi Libya with Gadhafi still in control of much of the country.
Last week, Obama spoke of helping Libyans establish a post-Gadhafi transitional government. He apparently hadn’t yet thought of an outcome that permitted Gadhafi to stay. It’s equally apparent that Gadhafi has just that in mind.
Two years after President Reagan sent American F-111s to strike Libya in retaliation for a Berlin disco bombing that took American lives, Gadhafi’s terrorists took another 189 American lives over Lockerbie, Scotland.
How long will it be before Gadhafi launches more terrorist attacks against us?
Jed Babbin was deputy undersecretary of defense under President George H.W. Bush. He is the author of such best-selling books as “Inside the Asylum” and “In the Words of Our Enemies.”
