“Defined” A situation or condition that results from the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic qualities, identities, or activities:….. President Obama says dictator Moammar Gadhafi “has to go” and the United States and its coalition partners are bombing Libya, but the White House refuses to connect these dots. America is poised to spend billions of dollars and kill scores or hundreds of Libyans but specifically rules out achieving its national objectives. It is a schizophrenic and futile approach to war.
The Obama administration’s stated objective in the Libyan conflict is to safeguard civilian lives, an application of the currently fashionable “responsibility to protect” (R2P) doctrine. The rationale is that Col. Gadhafi poses a “humanitarian threat” to his people, and international intervention is the only way to stop it. Of course, the most humanitarian war is a short war, and in this case the limited use of force will keep the conflict going. By degrading Col. Gadhafi’s air and ground forces, the coalition is leveling the playing field and guaranteeing that neither side will prevail. This stalemate strategy is a recipe for continued carnage.
This was the lesson of the civil war in Bosnia in which the international community imposed an arms embargo that prevented any side from winning and facilitated increasing levels of brutality. The killing only halted when NATO took sides and began a decisive bombing campaign. The Bosnian civil war illustrated both the futility of trying to micromanage civil conflicts and the value of imposing peace by force. In Libya, the international community should either intervene robustly to defeat Col. Gadhafi and overthrow his regime, or do nothing at all.
Instead, the United States has explicitly ruled out targeting the Libyan leader and has said it will not help the rebels. The coalition is maintaining a bizarre fiction that it is not taking sides even though it is only bombing one side. Col. Gadhafi is defiant in the face of the air campaign. He knows that so long as he survives he can portray himself as a nationalist hero combating external “crusader” aggression. His forces have shifted to unconventional tactics, shedding their uniforms and moving quickly into rebel-held cities to escape coalition bombs and missiles. The regime has billions of dollars to finance a mercenary force to wage an urban guerrilla struggle. In this asymmetric war, Col. Gadhafi knows he has everything to lose, and the coalition still cannot articulate what it has to gain.
Mr. Obama is trying desperately to hand leadership of Operation Odyssey Dawn to NATO, but questions are arising about how long this odyssey will endure. The last major experiment in no-fly zones – in Iraq – lasted a decade. Amid the chaos, the continuing civil war in Libya could lead to a more severe humanitarian crisis, which will require further international attention. Russia and China have denounced the operation, as have growing numbers of countries in the developing world. It is an international public-relations nightmare that promises to get worse.
Mr. Obama has opened himself to charges of hypocrisy. The president said that the war in Libya is “the greatest opportunity to realign our interests and our values,” a peculiar statement since U.S. interests and values don’t need adjusting. He justifies action based on the “legitimate aspirations” of the Libyan people but has little to say about aspirations of other oppressed groups. Popular unrest has surfaced in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Regimes have suppressed dissent in all of these countries with varying degrees of brutality. The implicit message from the Obama administration is that some aspirations are more legitimate than others.
