[Note: Last Monday, I wrote an article titled "Obama's Libyan Gamble." This should be read as "Part Two" of that article.]
Events on the ground in Libya, roughly one week after coalition warplanes and cruise missiles began flying, seem to have taken a turn for the better for the rebel forces. Surprisingly, though, the American media and political establishment seems largely focused on any number of ways this war could turn out badly for America, for Libya, and for the world. As city after city falls to the rebel forces, perhaps this narrative will shift somewhat. President Obama is about to give a speech to the nation, which may help focus the media on what is actually going on in Libya, rather than speculating about what could happen. Or perhaps not -- Obama's speech may become "the story" itself, and be picked apart word by word for the next few days, no matter what the rebels are doing in Libya.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the media is in "once bitten, twice shy" mode about cheerleading a new American war. Those in the media with an ounce of self-realization may feel chagrined at their jingoism at the start of our last two overt wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither one turned out as it was supposed to (to put it mildly), and the American public is war-weary after almost ten years of non-stop wars. Perhaps, to be fair, the media is merely reflecting this attitude.
I actually wasn't a big fan of imposing a no-fly zone in Libya myself. But, since we're now in a new war, I prefer to objectively look at what is happening rather than imposing my projections of what could go wrong. First, let's take a look at the military situation, as it now stands.
When the war (or the coalition's involvement in it) began, the rebels held only Benghazi, in the eastern part of Libya. The first few days of the war involved creating a safe no-fly zone, which meant sending over 100 cruise missiles and uncounted bombing runs in to take out both Ghaddafi's air force and his anti-aircraft capabilities. This was quickly achieved. The French shot down one airplane, but for the most part this involved strikes on targets sitting on the ground.
But the real situation-changer was what came next -- the coalition bombing the loyalist forces' tanks and heavy vehicles. Call it imposing a "no-tank zone" or a "no-drive zone." This prevented the loyalist forces from entering Benghazi, and has allowed the rebels to retake all of the coastal towns they had lost before the coalition acted. From Benghazi, the rebels have pushed ever-westward, taking Ajdabiya, Brega, and Ras Lanuf. The initial breakthrough happened in Ajdabiya, but afterwards the rebels have been advancing at an astonishing pace, as the loyalist forces have cut and run from all the other towns, after watching their tanks bombed flat. The loyalist forces (some of them, at least) are reportedly leaving behind their uniforms and ammunition, suggesting this is not merely an orderly retreat but rather mass desertion by Ghaddafi's troops. A rout, in other words. How much of this is wishful thinking and how much is the reality on the ground remains to be seen, however.
The rebels, at this writing, have made it as far as Bin Jawwad, which is the last step before taking on the city of Sirte. Sirte is likely not going to fall as easily as Brega and Ras Lanuf, however. In the first place, it is Ghaddafi's home town, and a strong base of support for him. In the second place, the loyalists are apparently digging in and preparing for a major battle in Sirte.
Sirte is strategically important because it lies between the rebel forces to the east and Misrata in the west. Misrata is currently a battleground, with portions of the city held by rebels, and portions still held by the loyalists (who still have un-bombed tanks to use there). Misrata, very early on in the uprising, was held by rebel forces, but the loyalists took the city in their march to the east (which was halted by the coalition's involvement). Misrata is also the last big city, looking westward, before Tripoli itself.
The rebels might be advised to just bypass Sirte and move on to Misrata. Lay siege to Sirte, guard the approaches to the town, and bottle up a bunch of loyalist forces there. If the rebels could circle around the city and move on to Misrata, this would leave the loyalists in Sirte cut off from their resupply lines. If the loyalists moved out from the city, air power could easily turn them back, it seems. Of course, I don't have accurate enough maps to know if this is even possible (if roads exist which bypass Sirte easily, in other words), but if so it seems to be an option worth considering. The real goal is Tripoli, and taking Misrata would be an enormous victory for the rebels.
One of the open questions Obama may address shortly is whether the coalition should arm the rebels. Diplomatically, we're not supposed to be "taking sides" in the civil war, but this is a fiction only diplomats now believe. We have -- quite obviously -- taken sides already. Whether the U.N. resolutions allow arming the rebels or not is an open question, though. Meaning that another diplomatic fiction may come to pass -- arming the rebels without openly admitting we are doing so (which America has certainly done in previous conflicts).
Outside of the military situation, the coalition seems to have the upper hand on the world stage, at least for the moment. A woman claiming Ghaddafi's soldiers raped her has become a focal point in the media, putting a human face on the regime's brutalities. Obama is likely going to devote a goodly portion of his speech to the fact that N.A.T.O. is taking over the operation, which was his war plan all along. This is happening much faster than any other conflict, and shows a real "coming of age" of the fighting capability of N.A.T.O., which has evolved since the fall of the Soviet Union. N.A.T.O.'s participation in Afghanistan was the real beginning of this, and its command of the Libyan war effort is going to be seen as a real turning point later on (assuming things go well with the setup).
There was one incident which was pretty amazing during the war so far, when two Americans had to bail out of their plane (which, according to official reports, malfunctioned and was not shot down). These airmen had been bombing an Islamic country, and yet they were welcomed and succored by the people on the ground. The mission to rescue the airmen did cause civilian casualties, reportedly killing five or six of them. What was astonishing, however, was an interview of a wounded civilian in a hospital afterwards who praised the American pilots he was trying to help, and bore no ill will towards the rescue mission which had seriously injured him. Think about that for a minute -- this man was shot by American forces while he was trying to aid an American pilot who had been part of an effort to bomb his country, and he was still thanking America for what it was doing. Not exactly the sort of image America is used to watching in this sort of situation, is it?
Qatar announced today it would be helping the rebels out not only by flying missions to patrol the no-fly zone, but also by getting Libya's oil production moving again. Several of the rebel-held coastal towns are ports for oil shipment, and the money generated by the rebels being able to sell oil may allow their nascent government breathing room to get up and running. It will also provide funds for the rebel forces to operate, as well.
President Obama's speech will be important for him domestically, to rally the public behind his war plan and to quell criticisms (or at least change the flavor of them) from war opponents on both sides of America's political divide. By waiting a week to give this speech, Obama can talk about the momentum the rebels have now created, and the rebel victories they have so far achieved -- rather than just speaking optimistically about what he hopes will happen, as he would have had to a week ago. This was a gamble by Obama (within his larger gamble of going to war in the first place), but it could turn out positively for him. If the war goes well, then few people are later going to remember the timing of his speech, or any of the congressional bickering during the earliest days of the war.
Of course, there's no guarantee that the war will go well, or end well. Far from it. There's still a very large possibility that it could become a fiasco, a quagmire, or whatever other term you wish to describe an ill-conceived military adventure. The public, so far, is largely rallying behind the president and this war, but that could melt away very quickly in a populace that is indeed very war-weary in general.
Which brings us back to Obama's gamble. Obama, had he not gone in to Libya, would now be the target of complaints (by the same people who are now criticizing what he did do, most likely) by the Jingoists as having "lost Libya," and by the Bleeding Hearts as having "been responsible for a massacre, by not acting." He chose the route that he did, however, and he's about to explain it to the public. So far, his gamble seems to be paying off fairly well. Militarily, it has been a rousing success, achieving the objectives set without loss of a single coalition life. Politically, Obama will be announcing the handover of a war to the coalition partners. Whether this gamble pays off is still an open question, but at least Obama can claim he is doing so on the schedule he laid out at the beginning -- "days, not weeks."
If the Libyan war ends well -- with Ghaddafi gone and a regime change to a government with much closer ties to the United States than Ghaddafi's (since we helped place them in power) -- then Obama's Libyan gamble will have paid off handsomely. If it deteriorates into a stalemate or loss for the rebels, Obama's gamble is not going to be seen as an intelligent move. A little more than one week in, however, things seem to be going fairly well. If the military situation continues to improve (especially if the rebels take Sirte and/or Misrata), then the cries of "Doom!" from Obama's political opponents will likely fade.
Any military action carries with it a lot of risk. There is the risk to those doing the fighting itself, and there is the risk back at home politically for those ordering the troops to fight. Obama's Libyan gamble has a large amount of risk for him, for America, and for Libya itself. So far, the benefits have outweighed the risks, as the rebels continue to advance with coalition air cover. But Obama's critics are right in one very important sense -- the real gamble is whether Ghaddafi can be dislodged from power. That is still a completely open question. Tripoli is not going to be as easy to overrun as Ajdabiya was. Ghaddafi is still capable of doing all sorts of nasty things before this is over. These risks still exist. And this is going to be the hardest subject Obama tackles in his speech -- how "Ghaddafi must go" is the real objective here, but is not part of the coalition's stated mission. Diplomatic nuance is fine within the U.N. building, but it's going to be tough to explain to the American people.
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Post: THE LIBYAN WAR: THE RIGHT WAY OR NO WAY
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It is amazing to listen to pro-war democrats put such a positive spin on Obama's latest war. They think they can sell this as a great humanitarian effort but if they think carefully about how many innocent civilians we killed in Iraq and Afghanistan they will understand why many of us are not ready to claim we are such great humanitarians. I guess they would like to forget this ugly record.
And, excuse me, it's not "Obama's War" Unlike the previous administration , he acted with and through the international community.
There are no guarentees in Civil uprising. Why are we so eager to lay blame on Obama already?
I'm hoping for success on all accounts--because the people of Libya and all across the Middle East want democracy--they want their countries back.
What is so hard about that concept. I'm glad the US is helping.
Right.
You're here for comic relief, aren't you!? :)
As well they should be, and as well as the rest of us should be. Call me crazy, but our track record has not exactly been exemplary in this arena.
Too early in the game to judge whether this will be a crowning achievement or an albatross for Obama.
The Idea of Bypassing (if Possible ) the towns like Sirte is a good one strategically if they had the ability to do it. However, if the follow on victory was not swift, having that loyalist enclave along your supply route and line of communication could turn out to be a mistake for the rebels.
The problem there is always tribal as it is in much of that part of the world where the borders were arbitrarily imposed by Europeans without regard to the people that lived there.
The towns along the Western Edge will be much more loyal to Qaddafi as he was born in the town of Sirte and is an ethnic Berber, which are ties that are taken very seriously.
I did take exception with your comments about the Obama gamble. The analysis is ok, but since I believe we are doing the right thing, I don't think the political spin is the relevant issue. There are just certain times when doing right outweighs political calculations in my opinion and this was one of them.
Obama gave a very good speech last night. 3 points still remain however,
1) He should have done it sooner and not waited
2) He needed Congressional Approval for use of Force
3) Handing over to NATO is Obfuscation, WE are NATO
2) No, he did not.
3) Handing over to NATO is common sense. The US is the backbone of NATO but hardly the be and end all of NATO. And, if coalition boots on the ground turns out to be necessary, then it had better be Arab boots on the ground. The reasons for this handover are many and varied and should be well understood.
"1) Building the kind of international coalition that was done in this case takes a bit of time. How soon should the intervention have begun, in your view?"
Actually in that sense I meant he owed the US people the same style prime time speech, the day the bombs fell instead of waiting a week! Although I think he did wait two weeks to long to start the no-fly zone and should have led in the push for it's creation sooner instead of following others leads. It was actually Hillary Clinton who put the American part of it together and was largely responsible for it and not Pres Obama.
"2) No, he did not." Ok United States Law says "TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 33 > § 1541
(c) Presidential executive power as Commander-in-Chief; limitation
The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to
(1) a declaration of war,
(2) specific statutory authorization, or
(3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.
The Use of force was not justified without the specific Statutory authorization. If you disagree please state why? Where in US Law, did the US President get the Authority to use force?
per Liz point three to be continued....
Besides the joke I first heard from a Polish Army Officer before Poland became a part of NATO, that NATO stands for: "Need Americans To Operate" and not withstanding the very fine NATO countries I worked with, it was an Obfuscation by the President.
His words were to convey a sense of our lack of involvement. But the reality is that we are more then "a small part" of NATO. As you say, we are the BACKBONE.
I fully agree that having the other countries in the Coalition is important. That is why we had MORE countries in the Coalition that went into Iraq then we do on this operation.
My point on his obfuscation is that America, as a part of NATO still will play a pivotal role, in planning, coordinating, and carrying out the operations. Yet in his speech he made it seem like we were done except for a very small role.
His exact quote "that we would transfer responsibility to our allies and partners. Tonight, we are fulfilling that pledge." But if the Responsibility is NATO, and we are the Backbone of NATO, what exactly other then Semantics did we transfer? We are still going to be just as heavily involved.
Kosovo was NATO (and then Russia came in but that was a separate issue). But it was still US led...
You might be right, especially about dividing the rebel forces. They'd have to leave some behind to besiege Sirte, and its approaches. I know nothing more about the rebel forces than what I see in the news, which isn't much. But if they succeeded in Misrata, they may add to their forces as they free up the people fighting there and meld the two rebel groups together. It's tough to tell.
Libya, geographically, seems like a pretty "linear" or "two-dimensional" war, in that most towns are on the coast, and there's not much in the interior (at least, not much that has come into play so far). It makes for an interesting battlefield, that's all I'm saying.
My comments on the gamble seem to fit in to your point (1). Any president going to war needs the public behind him. Political spin's purpose is to rally support. Perhaps he should have spoken sooner, but I thought the speech itself was very good for what it said.
(2) If Obama had asked for Congress' support, the Senate would still be debating whether or not to even hold a vote, and the issue would be moot because the rebellion would be crushed. So if, as you say, it was the right thing to do, where would we be now?
(3) This is one of those diplomatic fictions I spoke of. It's also a gamble, in a lot of ways.
-CW
I think not on that Chris. This is one of the issues that seems to me, that they would do. Like I said he should have done it before or at the start of the UN vote and by the end of the debate Congress would have decided if he led.
I do share a very skeptical view of Congresses ability to get anything meaningful done, but there are certain National Defense issues that do bring us together. I just believe, maybe wrongly, that this would have been one of them if he made the compelling case he made last night to stop the imminent Benghazi Massacre they would have acted. I guess now we will never know.
The problem is we are invalidating the War Powers Act and going further down a dangerous path of the President (any president) using US force without even a pretext of Constitutional legitimacy. Remember, you like and trust this one (I don't) but the next one can be one you totally disagree with and he can fall back on this precedent and although there are other precedents of use of Force without authority, it sends us further down that slippery slope.
Now we propose to do the same thing, only we have ahead of time declared that their will be NO attempt (As opposed to an inadequate one) to intervene on the ground and we will wash our hands of the whole situation. It's possible that we have a better handle on this (this time). Perhaps the Gaddafi loyalist will melt into the landscape and sectarian violence won't create a permanent civil war. Perhaps the Libyan people will hail us as heros and thank us for freedom while they sit together at the camp fire singing kumbaya. We were wrong last time, perhaps we are right now.
>>>Now we propose to do the same thing, only we have ahead of time declared that their will be NO attempt (As opposed to an inadequate one) to intervene on the ground and we will wash our hands of the whole situation.
In Iraq, the population was even more Diverse then in Lybia with the warring Shia, Sunni and Kurds (and multiple sub-tribes/clans of each) being fed by outside agitators taking revenge. Also the fact that Saddam H was able to hide out until 2004 evading capture for so long even after we had control of the country militarily hurt our efforts there.
You are correct though that we are taking sides in a civil war where both sides are brutal with little regard for human rights and dignity and neither side is particularly fond of us.
In Iraq, Bosnia and to a lesser extent in Kosovo, we were not taking sides so much but we dealt equally with all sides. For example we treated the Sunni and Shia and Kurds much the same in Iraq and after initially preventing the Serbs from Massacring the Kosovar Muslims (ethnic Albanians) we protected the Serb Christian Churches and towns from Muslim aggression in the Kosovo province.
It is a mess over in Lybia however, and it can be a situation where there are no "good answers" just "less bad" answers. But in the words of a great song: "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice" And the Great American hero said "With Great power comes great responsibility"
Where are you getting this stuff?
But the reason we are not showing concern for those countries can be summed up in one word: conservatives.
After Somalia and the BlackHawk Down incident, conservatives exacted a huge price with endless hearings to embaress a non-republican president, including the resignation of his defense secretary, Les Aspin. (It seems Obama is not the first Democrat to throw people under the bus.)
No way a president was EVER going to help stop sub-Saharan genocide again and face the wrath of Tom Delay, Dan Burton, Newt Gingrich and company.
As for Syria, well it seems to show the true colors of conservatives when they ask about starting a war on a fourth front while at the same time wanting to defund and impeach a president for starting a war on a third front.
"Kinetic action," Chris. ;D Is it me, or does that sound like something that happens when you forget to put Bounce in the dryer?
I wrote about this last Friday, wondering why nobody at the White House seems to check these acronyms... "kinetic military action" is KMA... which means something unique to the text-messaging "OMG" generation.
Heh.
-CW
Luckily, this conflict isn't about oil.
One thing is for sure ... if regime change had been a part of UNSC Resolution 1973 it would not have passed, plain and simple, and there would have been no intervention in Libya. There are other ways to dislodge Gaddafi from power and I would suspect all of them are being engaged as we write!
This was one of the best parts of President Obama's speech tonight.
In just a few short years, the Obama administration's foreign policy team has been able to make great progress in restoring America's global leadership role and this reaction by the Libyans involved in this incident with the American jet and its pilots is one significant manifestation of that.
Are you for real?