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Buzz Cut:
• Libya debacle casts shadow on Obama war plan
• Cruz forward: 2016 GOP Power Index
• Power Play: Goodlatte lays out House immigration plan
• The campaign without a candidate rolls on
• Hey, it’s been very cold lately
LIBYA DEBACLE CASTS SHADOW ON OBAMA WAR PLAN
President Obama had better leave some blank spaces in the next draft of his proposal to Congress for a “right-sized” war to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Key U.S. ally Egypt has now bombed ISIS targets in Libya, which is some 700 miles away from what we were are told is theater of war – a distance about the same as that between Pittsburgh and Savannah. (So at least now you know who not to ask for directions.) In the spirit of baseball spring training, maybe the updated version can just say “Iraq, Syria, Libya and nations to be named later…” But before we get to the issue of Egypt bombing an ISIS affiliate in Libya in reprisal for the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians, we might do well to consider how we ended up with an ISIS affiliate in Libya anyway.
[“The president is asking for less authority than he has today under previous authorizations. …And I don’t believe what the president sent here gives him the flexibility, or the authority, to take on this enemy and to win.” – Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, on “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.” Watch here.]
What a difference – Four years ago today, the chatter was also all about Egypt and Libya, but the news was very different. In Egypt, the country was in turmoil in the wake of President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation five days earlier under intense pressure from Obama. But the big news was in Libya, where the rebellion against dictator Muammar Qaddafi had just gotten underway the night before in the city of Benghazi. Within 10 days, both Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would call for regime change in Libya. The U.S. would join the civil war on the side of the rebels about a month later. Eighteen months after that, Islamist militants would attack and destroy a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, the city where the rebellion began. Each passing month would bring worse news from Libya as the Islamists who fought in the rebellion took more control over and eventually suffocated the fledgling Western-backed government.
