Obama didn't want to intervene in Libya. Hillary, Samantha Power, and the other women in his administration were screaming publicly about the ongoing slaughter... the bloodbath.
Remember Rwanda!
Gaddafi bragged,"We will have no mercy."
But low profile Obama waited. This reluctant warrior was not going in alone. No way. He had to appear to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into a new war in an Arab land. France and England were furiously beating drums of war.
But meanwhile Obama's generals had the guns loaded, the cruise missiles locked in, ready to fire, and the jets warmed up on the flight decks.
Obama was hoping, praying that the rebels could oust Gaddafi on their own, but it was not happening.
The cowboy Republicans were calling him a "dithering" wuss. "It 's too late," they screamed. The genocide has begun. Obama didn't pay any attention.
Patience... His finger on the trigger... He waited for the rest of the Arab crowd to realize that the U.S. wasn't going to cover their asses anymore. Obama got the Arab League vote on a "No Fly" zone, and he immediately, and artfully, rushed through a UN resolution, (with the Soviet Union and China abstaining.)
With all the diplomatic chess pieces in place, Obama pulled the trigger and Libya exploded, all at once, all over the country.
Gaddafi's air force didn't have a chance. Out went the air defense batteries; puff went the Libyan military airfield; boom went the hellfire missiles as they annihilated Libyan tanks and the military supply lines.
Speak softly and carry a big stick.
Twenty four hours later and it was all but over. A week later and we are handing the mop up operations to NATO and the Europeans. Libya is Grenada with oil, the fun war, where regime change will be easy, and we can get on with our lives. Maybe.
What have we accomplished with this neo-Thomas Jefferson attack against the baddest Barbary Pirate of them all, a mad dictator who was responsible for the deaths of 270 innocent civilians with the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland?
For one, Gaddafi promised the annihilation of Benghazi's 670,000 civilians. We probably saved some lives there. More importantly we sent a message to the Arab world. Within hours of American Tomahawk missiles smashing Gaddafi's headquarters, half a dozen senior generals in Yemen defected from their dictator.
It's comforting to have a clever, nuanced Commander in Chief again. Who said there will never be another Teflon president?