President Obama’s belated description on Monday of the United States’ engagement in Libya did not – because it could not – say how the intervention to aid Libyan rebels will end. With the mercurial dictator Moammar Gadhafi clinging to power through the stronger arsenal of his military, the outcome simply remains unknown. Nor would his address have satisfied critics on both sides – those who think he should have done nothing at all, and those who believe the United States and the United Nations are doing too little to help the Libyan rebels oust Gadhafi. But the president did make a cogent and reasonable case for the military action in Libya, explaining both the rationale of the U.S. role under the approval of the United Nations, and the course ahead under the leadership, beginning today, of a NATO commander.
The slower-than-anticipated shift to NATO leadership may explain why Obama delayed his public address on the Libyan intervention so long, but it doesn’t excuse his tardiness. He should have briefed the nation on his policy sooner; he was wrong to wait so long.
He accurately noted, however, that if the United States and its allies had waited one day longer before establishing a no-fly zone in Libya and taking action to protect its civilians, Gadhafi’s vengeful military would have launched a massacre in the city of Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city. Such a slaughter – Gadhafi had promised to show “no mercy” in what he said would be a house-to-house cleansing of the rebels and their supporters – would have stained the United Nation’s conscience; reinforced the fragile regimes of other Arab despots who are under pressure to step down; and jeopardized the tentative governmental reforms now proceeding in Libya’s neighbors, Egypt and Tunisia.
Another day’s delay also would have undermined the credibility of the United Nations and the civil and human rights mandate that it recognized to protect Libyan civilians. With so much hanging in the balance, Obama said the United States, a half-dozen European NATO allies and two Arab governments correctly responded to the Libyan rebels’ pleas to establish a no-fly zone and to restrict the ability of the Libyan military to operate.
The result has been dramatic. After being forced out of towns they had initially taken on the way west to Tripoli, the rebels have retaken two key oil-refinery towns and are now attempting another assault on the key junction town of Sirte. Under NATO’s newly designated commander, Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard of Canada, the organization’s air campaign will continue to keep Libyan jets on the ground and to pummel the Libyan artillery and tank units that are whipping the rebels.