The United States’ not-quite-a-war in Libya has come down to not-quite-an-agreement with NATO to lead an assault against Moammar Gadhafi’s forces, and the Obama administration — to the delight of its critics — has been left scrambling to explain yet another complicated military mission abroad. But some say communicating is not Obama’s biggest problem with Libya. Rather, it’s the murkiness of the situation itself, reflected in administration officials’ competing messages on the U.S. goals for the intervention and ongoing arguments among America’s allies over the mission’s leadership.
“The U.S. strategy in Libya is constantly evolving and that makes it a little difficult to communicate it into a sound bite,” said Raj Desai, a politics and global economics expert with the Brookings Institution.
Hours after NATO announced its decision to take over command and control of the no-fly zone in Libya last week, U.S. officials took to the airwaves and held conference calls with reporters late into the night to clarify the shifting U.S. role abroad.
The administration struggled to define the military action not as a war but as a “kinetic military action” and to separate NATO’s “political agreement” that strikes against Gadhafi’s ground forces are necessary from the organization’s lack of consensus on whether NATO or the United States should carry out those strikes.
“The NATO alliance agreed [on] two things: Number one, to execute a decision to take over command and control of the no-fly zone,” a senior administration official said. “NATO also reached a political agreement.”
But that “political agreement” is merely a consensus among the 28 NATO nations that action needs to be taken against Gadhafi’s forces and military resources as a way to protect civilians and the rebel forces hoping to oust Gadhafi. The agreement, however, does not allow NATO to lead such attacks. If NATO doesn’t take responsibility for those ground strikes, the U.S. could be left in charge of that aspect of the mission indefinitely.
The rapidly shifting situation has led to a number of conflicting statements about the U.S. role in Libya since bombings began last week.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton assured that NATO would take over all operations in a matter of days, while NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the U.S. would continue a lead role in everything but enforcing the no-fly zone.
Clinton also said NATO control would lead to a “significant reduction in the use of U.S. planes,” even as Pentagon officials were saying U.S. planes would continue to participate in the attacks.
The conflicting statements have drawn angry complaints from Capitol Hill that the president was not effectively communicating his decisions.
“It is a complicated situation that is changing rapidly,” said Catholic University politics professor John White. “Whatever message you send out today can be negated by further events tomorrow.”
Americans also aren’t used to the U.S. taking a back seat to other countries in an international military action, although that is Obama’s goal in transferring leadership of the mission to NATO, he said.
While some critics would like to see the president march into the Oval Office and say, “We’re in charge and we want this and we want that and then we’re going to get out,” Desai said, “this is just not that kind of engagement.”
