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April 14, 2011 Monica Lewinsky in Libya Obama Did Not Have Sex with That Country (And NATO Can't) <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/id.192/author_detail.asp> Ralph Peters Print This <javascript:%20printVersion()> E-mail This <javascript:%20emailVersion()> <javascript:void(0);> http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/images/share.png ShareThis <javascript:void(0);> Comments (11) <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/comments.asp?id=9241> http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20110112_RALPHPETERSBANNER.jpg A wary US president is a good thing, but a fearful one is a disaster: You cant make love, war or reforms part way, then pull back, skulk about and cross your fingers that no one will catch you out. In the defining event of his presidency, Bill Clinton wanted to have sex with a chubby young intern, but was afraid. Instead of manning upeither through self-restraint or bold self-indulgencehe tried to split the difference, satisfying his desires with partial measures. The result was a stain on a blue dress and an indelible stain on the presidency, a disastrous slop of lies, word-play, excuses and shabby cowardice. In a crucial action of his presidency, Barack Obama wanted to intervene in a humanitarian disaster created by an American-killing terrorist chieftain. He did not want a Rwanda on his conscience (as the scurrilous Mr. Clinton has on his). So far, so good. http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20110413_Monica.jpg But Obama agonized over whether or not to embrace the problem fullyjust as Clinton worried about how far he could get away with going with a bedazzled junior staffer in a closet. After missing the window when the Libyan butcher Moammar Khaddafi was reeling and could have been shoved out by a timely show of force, Obama waited until the terror-dictator regained his footing and determination. Then our president tried to stick it in half-way. Is this a war? Depends on what your definition of is is. Obama made a belated display of bravado, appearing to stand erect, before hunching his shoulders and rapidly walking it back, insisting that this would be a NATO operation and that he didnt really have sexwell, warwith Libya. Now, as I write, we may hope that events unseat Colonel Khaddafi, but weve blown our shot at a crisp end to the crisis. NATO is in the skies, but the struggle is on the ground. Meanwhile, the alliance is a finger-pointing muddle, with Britain and France admirably committed to Khaddafis removal: middling countries sending aircraft, but restricting their use to uselessness; Germany undercutting its closest allies; and Turkey demonstrating, once again, that it no more belongs in the Atlantic Alliance than does North Korea (an unfair comparison, of course, since North Korea is honest about its hostility toward freedom and human rights, while Turkeys Islamist government says one thing, then does another). On the military side, the bottom line is twofold: First, when you fail to act promptly, the price of resolution soars. We need a commander-in-chief, not a ditherer-in-chief. And we need a president who, whatever his decision, makes up his mind resolutely, and damn the political torpedoes. But the dominant characteristic of the Obama presidency is not really a socialist bent, but moral cowardice. The second, immediate point is that only the U.S. Armed Forces have the fully skilled pilots, the right aircraft mix, the appropriate weaponry, and the support infrastructure to execute an air operation, such as that over Libya, with a reasonable hope of avoiding a quagmire. But we told Khaddafi we were going to take our football and go home. Of course, air power never really lives up to the claims made by defense contractors and fighter pilots. It does, however, have a powerful psychological effect, if used boldly and promptly. Obama failed on both counts, and Khaddafi remains defiant. You either bang the intern, or you dont. You either depose the dictator, or you dont. But going half-way just opens you up to all the penalties, without the satisfaction. Although the word is horribly unfashionable in the Obama era, we need a manly president. George W. Bush was mocked viciously for his colloquial English when he declared, Im the decider. But a decider is exactly what a president must be. An equivocatora Hamletin the Oval Office is bad news not just for American citizens, but for the world. All that said, I believefirmlythat Obama was right to intervene in Libya. Its only a shame that he tried to split the difference with himself, first shooting, then scooting, playing to one constituency after another with breathtaking ineptitude. Just as President Bush did a great thing in Iraq, but did it poorly, so Obama did a good thing in Libya, but did it incompetently. And it is only honest and honorable to acknowledge that resisting Khaddafis impulse to massacre rebels fed up with his rule is, in and of itself, a wise and virtuous act. Obama can be criticized for how he did it, but not for doing it. Those who criticize everything Obama does just because its Obama at the wheel fall into the same trap the left fell into under President Bush: Had Bill Clinton deposed Saddam Hussein, the left would have celebrated him as the greatest liberator since Abraham Lincoln. But ridding the world of Saddam was bad because Bush did it. Likewise, had Bush taken on Khaddafi, the right would have cheered. What happened to the conservative position, espoused during our Iraq intervention, that politics should stop at the waters edge? Equally troubling, if not more so, is the willful blindness and hypocrisy I encounter among my conservative brethren when it comes to the freedom uprisings rocking the Arab world: This is what we said we wanted. What Bush began in Iraq is playing out now in Libya, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia the struggle for basic human rights and democracy was the strategic point, wasnt it? Yet, we hear nonsensical claims that, well, Bashar al Assad really isnt so bad, that Syria has kept the peace, that what comes after might be worse. And we hear the same nonsense regarding Khaddafi. Thats like arguing that we should have kept Hitler in power because what might come after him could be worse. In Khaddafis case, he backed or directly ordered terrorist acts that, until the advent of al Qaeda, killed more Americans than any other sponsor of terror. In Assads tenure, Syria has backed Hezbollah, ravaged Lebanon, supplied Hamas with arms and harbored its leadership, protected Saddams top Baathists, undercut all peace efforts, enabled terrorists to enter Iraq and base their command posts safely in Syria And by the way: Hosni Mubarak of Egypt wasnt our buddy, either. He took our money, quietly empowered the Muslim Brotherhoodas long as it didnt challenge himplayed the anti-Israelis card domestically, and oppressed 80-million people. Were damned lucky that the Egyptians who came out to protest in unprecedented masses werent waving anti-American signs, too. This is a time of great opportunity. And were led by a frightened small-time politician the media put in the White House. Conservatives should be leading the way in these stunning developments, grasping opportunities wherever they appear. Instead, we hear addled longing for the status quoeven though the status quo gave us al Qaeda. Make no mistake: Change was long overdue in the Middle East. It was inevitable, merely a question of when and how. Now its here. We can either wring our hands and weep for the past (as Islamists do), or we can do what we can to facilitate the emergence of rule-of-law democracies. Of course, the process is going to be messy, ugly, frustrating and sometimes alarming, as well as inspiring. But how could we stop it? Should we have invaded Egypt to keep Mubarak in power? Dont like the freedom protests? Tell me exactly how you intend to stop them. And do we really want to stand on the side of the dying dictatorships that played into the hands of Islamist extremists? The old regimes with their repression were al Qaedas number-one recruiting aids. We need to calm down and regain some perspective. The events in the Middle East this year will reverberate for decades. Most of us will be dead before the region settles itself into a functional new order (if it ever does). But unless you can pose a concrete alternative plan, its time to get on the right side of history. And that is the side of freedom, however imperfect. http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20110414_ObamaHamlet.jpg To bomb, or not to bomb...or something in between?" Back to Libya Ive been appalled by the blusterers who argue that we cant intervene everywhere, therefore it makes no sense to intervene anywhere. Theres no serious strategic logic in that. Just because you cant yet fix the crack in the basement doesnt mean theres no point in plugging the hole in the roof. In the real world, you do what must be done, and you do what you can. But the inability to cure cancer doesnt mean theres no point in fighting tuberculosis. Positive change is incremental, and the world is only rarely an all-or-nothing place. Finally, weve all heard the shrill cries that Libya has no strategic value to the United States. Usually, we hear this from ultra-conservatives who have no foreign-policy experience, or from exhausted bureaucrats overwhelmed by the futility of Obamas campaign-promise war in Afghanistan (a place that truly lacks strategic value). But, really, this charge is just a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that Obama was the guy who pulled the trigger this time. There are four major reasons why Libya was and is worth doing (if only we had done it promptly and well ): First, the humanitarian concerns were real. What do we stand for, if we watch civilians rise against monstrous regimes in the name of freedom, then avert our eyes as their dictators gun them down? Second, while we cant intervene everywhere (Syrias just too hard, while Yemens too hopeless), Libya was the crucial case. Had we allowed Khaddafi to butcher his own citizens with impunity, it would have sent a message to dictators around the world that, if your people get uppity, its okay to slaughter themfrom Beijing to Caracas, then enemies of freedom would have rejoiced. Third, a Khaddafi win would have shut down the freedom movements throughout the Middle East, as other strongmen cracked downand these are genuine freedom struggles in search of basic rights and economic opportunity, not some deep plot by Muslim extremists. Fourth, oil. Naïve ideologues have been bellowing that Libyas oil goes to Europe, not us. True. But the worlds oil markets are interconnected. Take Libyas oil off-line for years (under sanctions), and the Europeans have to compete with us and the Chinese for what remains on the market. Dont like four-buck-a-gallon gas? Youll love it at ten-bucks-per-gallon. With the largest oil reserves on the African continent, do we really want to leave Libya under the control of Colonel Khaddafi. History has a sense of humor folks: The left charged Bush, incorrectly, with going to war for oil. But its the lefts president, Obama, who really went to war (if only half-way) for oil. In an age of sudden, wonderful opportunities amid a bold struggle for human rights and freedom, we have a president unable to fully consummate any act with the least political risk, and an ethical breakdown among many conservatives who, because Obamas in office, blithely turn their backs on the cause of freedom and human dignity for which we long have stood. Obama needs to get a spine, but we need to get a grip. This is a time of fantastic opportunitiesbut we cant take advantage of them if were in bed with the covers pulled up over our heads, worried about the bogeyman under the box springs. Shouldnt we be brave? Maybe democracy wont work under the cultural reins of Arab Islambut countless young Arab are risking their lives to give it a try. Should our sympathies really lie with yesterdays dictators? Al Qaedas not going to exploit this unrest to take over the world and close down our favorite saloons. Al Qaedas the big loser in these uprisingsand its trying desperately to catch up with a train thats left the station (and for which it doesnt have a ticket). Al Qaedas high watermark was in Iraq in 2006. While still dangerous, its been losing ground every since. Instead of worrying about al Qaeda in Libya, we should focus on Khaddafi in Tripoli. Meanwhile, if a few ragtag al Qaeda terrorists want to suicide bomb some of Khaddafis thugs, it sounds like a win-win to me. I just wish our president had the same strength of will as our enemies. <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/> Family Security Matters Contributing Editor <http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/id.192/author_detail.asp> Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer, a former enlisted man, a journalist and a bestselling author. He has experience in seventy countries on six continents. His latest books are <http://www.amazon.com/Officers-Club-Ralph-Peters/dp/0765326809> The Officers Club, a novel of the post-Vietnam military, and <http://www.amazon.com/Endless-War-Middle-Eastern-Western-Civilization/dp/08 11705501> Endless War: Middle-Eastern Islam vs. Western Civilization. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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