Stalemate in Libya: Obama, Ghaddafi and Israel

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How can we explain the current heartbreaking state of the U.S./NATO campaign against Libya, which seems mired in stalemate? The evidence seems to indicate that the stalemate is a result of a decision by the Obama administration not to topple Ghaddafi’s regime despite the negative effect the inconclusive war is having on Obama’s domestic poll numbers. An American stalemate strategy would explain why the U.S. immediately handed over direction of the war to NATO and ended its briefly effective air support.

Perhaps the White House has either not found a reliable ally among rebel leaders or is not really looking. It seems as if the U.S. is prepared to allow Ghaddafi to defeat the rebellion and/or to remain in power indefinitely.

If Obama, despite his rhetoric, prefers not to remove Ghaddafi, it’s not unlikely that it is because putative Libyan rebel leaders would reflect their country’s public opinion in support of Palestinian national and human rights, including an end to the occupation. Obama’s reluctance to remove Ghaddafi may be due to his disinclination to challenge Israeli interests. The New York Times front-page headline for April 29, 2011 highlighting Egyptian moves to normalize ties with the Iranians and Hamas is an example of the sort of thing the Israelis and undoubtedly the Obama administration do not want to see repeated in Libya.

The current turmoil in the Middle East sheds light on the Israeli boast that it is the only democracy in the Middle East as it reveals its wish to maintain that position. It’s also a reminder that Israeli pressure on the Arab world has helped to sustain dictatorships in many ways, not least by persuading millions of Arabs for decades that national unity trumped democratic rights in the face of the security threat from the lone democracy.

Obama and Ghaddafi

I couldn't help noticing on facebook and elsewhere that many if not all of my friends on the Left (including I just noticed, one of my heroes, Glenn Greenwald) are on the other side of the question of U.S. intervention against Ghaddafi.

Here we have a case where, largely because of the example of Tunisia and Egypt, etc., much of the Libyan population have understandably been emboldened to demonstrate and demand regime change. And I gather that to some extent, their boldness comes from the circumstance that Obama occupies the White House and not Bush-Cheney.

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Don’t get me wrong. I think Obama is as great a threat (or even greater) to democracy in the Middle East, in the U.S. and everywhere else as was Bush and Cheney. However, Ghaddafi's naked brutality and the ruthless extent of his brutal viciousness has placed Obama in a difficult position. On the one hand, I gather that he’d prefer to maintain support for Ghaddafi perhaps because the Libyan dictator represents stability and the status quo; and also because Israel would be more comfortable with Ghaddafi than they would be with a successor government which might better represent the Libyan public when it comes to Israeli repression of the Palestinians and the political and military carte blanche the Israelis enjoy in the area. Obama’s real sentiments in support of these dictators—and his fealty to Israeli desires could explain his wavering and indecision in all these cases.

At the same time it should be clear that there’s no argument here that the U.S. is the great imperial monster, resorting to unprovoked aggression time and again—and virtually always against its own best interests--for more than a century, but especially since WWII. Nevertheless, as adults, we’re responsible for making case-by- case distinctions. Libya is a case where the U.S., with its military and political power, is in a position to do some good, as it could have done and should have done in Rwanda.

When you have a situation where Ghaddafi has already demonstrated that he’s prepared to wipe out thousands of people, perhaps many thousands of people—intellectuals, professionals, students, shopkeepers—all its perceived opponents--it behooves a great power to take action when it can do so with relative ease –even if we don’t have much of a clue about the nature of the government that might follow. We can just hope that it would not be as murderous nor as illegitimate as Ghaddafi's.

I took a similar position years ago with Clinton’s intervention in Kosovo only to find out later the extent to which it was the Clinton administration’s support of the most criminal Kosovar elements that incited the bloodshed. I don’t expect to find that Libya and Tunisia and Egypt are parallel cases.

My only problem with the U.S. intervention in Libya is that it took so long to get started nor is it clear to me that the U.S. anti-Ghaddafi effort, even now, is whole-hearted and sincerely aimed at stopping Ghaddafi’s criminal activity.

I wish it were.

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