Misguided Criticism: Obama Doesn’t Need To ‘Take The Lead’ In Libya
There’s been a lot of well-thought-out criticism of the Obama administration’s decision to intervene in Libya’s civil war with no clear objective, plan of exit or even comprehensive knowledge of the rebel forces. But one line of criticism, which is coming almost exclusively from the right, is thoroughly unpersuasive: The notion that America has to be seen as “taking the lead,” as South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham put it on Sunday:
“I am very worried we are taking a back seat rather than a leadership role,” he said on Fox News Sunday. “Isolate, strangle and replace this man. That should be our goal.”
According to Joint Chiefs Staff Director Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, the U.S. is running the operations focused on Libya, although Gortney emphasized during a Pentagon briefing yesterday that the U.S. is “working diligently to affect a smooth transition to a coalition command structure in the next few days.” The confusion seems to stem from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who attempted to stress the multilateral nature of the intervention by stating: “We did not lead this.”
Most of the arguments for why the U.S. should be seen as “taking the lead” seem to hinge on little more than the fact that so doing would be emotionally satisfying to those who have been agitating for intervention in Libya since hostilities began. On the other hand, Ross Douthat takes a different tack,arguing that the U.S. multilateral approach facilitates a “caution that shades into tactical incompetence.” But since the U.S. is still extricating itself from President George W. Bush’s unilateral invasion of Iraq, which didn’t exactly amount to “tactical competence,” this too is less than persuasive.
There are several reasons why the U.S. shouldn’t be seen as taking the lead. For one thing, the U.S. is already occupied with the aftermath of one war in Iraq and attempting to bring a more than decade-long operation in Afghanistan to its conclusion. The U.S. does not have unlimited military resources, and other countries that demanded intervention should take responsibility and offer contributions rather than free-riding off of the United States. The statements from the Arab League — which asked for intervention but then wavered when operations started — suggest that there really is a short shelf-life for the legitimacy for this operation in the Arab world, even though intervention initially had global support. If the operation goes badly, or takes far longer than advertised, it’s frankly in the U.S. interest not to be seen as having led the attack on a third Muslim country.
While the case for the international community attempting to prevent Libyan Dictator Moammar Gaddafi from massacring his own people is understandable, there are still reasons for skepticism that this intervention won’t actually compound the problem. But to the extent that the U.S. has decided to intervene in Libya, we should be relieved that the administration has decided to avoid shouldering the entire burden by itself. And we can only hope it actually turns out that way, and the U.S. isn’t left holding the bag.
By: Adam Serwer, The Washington Post, March 21, 2011
Realism Or Politics: The Council On Foreign Relations Richard Haass Has A Credibility Problem
Meet The Press had a very interesting cast of characters today for their round table discussion on the events occuring in Libya. Panelists included Helen Cooper, White House Correspondent for the New York Times; Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent; Michael Hayden, Former Director of the NSA and CIA; John Miklaszewski, NBC News Chief Pentagon Correspondent; and Richard Haass, President of The Council on Foreign Relations.
None of the input by these elitist panelist’s came as a surprise. In fact many of their responses were predictable. Cooper, Mitchell and Miklaszewski obviously wanted to use their airtime to promote their next story..to keep the news cycle going. That’s their job so more power to them. Hayden, as a George W. Bush appointee, surely would not suddenly have a change of heart and say anything contrary to the proven failed policies of that administration. Richard Haass, in symphony with Hayden, played his “bad cop” role to the hilt. Haass never seemed to miss a step in his criticism of the Obama administrations handling of Libya (excerpted comments):
David Gregory, the host (and I use that term lightly) of Meet The Press, Began the discussion: I want to talk, however, about how much is on the president’s plate right now. You talk about crisis management and a confluence of crisis. We’ve pulled together some cover stories from Time magazine–I want to put it up there on the screen–“Target Gaddafi.” The next one, “Hitting Home: Tripoli Under Attack.” And the next one, “Meltdown.”
MR. RICHARD HAASS: It’s a lot to manage, but also it raises the importance of an administration having its priorities. You’ve got a lot to manage with Japan, you’ve got a lot to manage with what’s going on in the broader Middle East, you’ve got a lot to manage what’s going on in the United States in terms of our economy and our deficit. So one of the real questions is why are we doing as much are we are doing in Libya? So many of your guests are talking about too little too late. Let me give you another idea, David, too much too late. In times of crisis and multiple crisis, administrations have to figure out their priorities. They got to do some triage. The–to me, the big problem is not what we haven’t done, it is what we are doing.
MR. GREGORY: Richard, you, you just have broad concerns as you, as you penned a piece in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month, “The US should keep out of Libya.”
MR. HAASS: Again, our interests aren’t vital. We’re talking about 2 percent of the world’s oil. Yes, there’s a humanitarian situation on, but at the risk of seeming a bit cold, it is not a humanitarian crisis on the scale say of Rwanda. We don’t have nearly 100–a million people, innocent men, women and children whose lives are threatened. This is something much more modest. This is a civil war. In civil wars, people get killed, unfortunately. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves. This is not a humanitarian intervention, this is U.S. political, military intervention in a civil conflict which, by the way, history suggests, often prolongs the civil conflict. And, as several people have already pointed out, what is step B? Whether Gadhafi complies with what we want or whether he resists successfully, either way, we are going to be stuck with the aftermath of essentially having to take ownership of Libya with others. And just because others are willing to share in something, as so many people point out, doesn’t make it a better policy. It just means the costs are going to be distributed. But the policy itself is seriously flawed.
MR. GREGORY: The big ideas and are we getting them right?
MR. HAASS: Mike Mullen says the big idea, the biggest single national security threat facing the United States is our economy, it’s our fiscal situation. This will not make it better. Instead, we are ignoring a previous secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, someone you haven’t had on the show in awhile. We are going abroad in search of monsters to destroy. There’s any number of monsters. But is this, right now, something that’s strategically necessary and vital for the United States, given all that’s happening in places like Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, around the world, with all that we need to repair at home? The answer, I would think, is not. And that’s the big idea the administration’s missing. It’s not enough to simply want to do good around the world wherever we see bad. We’ve got to ask ourselves, where can we do good, at what cost, against what else we might have to do?
All of Haass’ comments gave me a flashback. Iran immediately came to mind. Haass, Iran..Haass, Iran. When is enough actually enough..when is enough not enough?
The answer is Mr. Haass, you’ve got a credibility problem. The following article appeared in Newsweek on January 22, 2010. It was written by none other than Richard Haass:
Enough Is Enough
Why we can no longer remain on the sidelines in the struggle for regime change in Iran.
Two schools of thought have traditionally competed to determine how America should approach the world. Realists believe we should care most about what states do beyond their borders—that influencing their foreign policy ought to be Washington’s priority. Neoconservatives often contend the opposite: they argue that what matters most is the nature of other countries, what happens inside their borders. The neocons believe this both for moral reasons and because democracies (at least mature ones) treat their neighbors better than do authoritarian regimes.
I am a card-carrying realist on the grounds that ousting regimes and replacing them with something better is easier said than done. I also believe that Washington, in most cases, doesn’t have the luxury of trying. The United States must, for example, work with undemocratic China to rein in North Korea and with autocratic Russia to reduce each side’s nuclear arsenal. This debate is anything but academic. It’s at the core of what is likely to be the most compelling international story of 2010: Iran.
In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration judged incorrectly that Iran was on the verge of revolution and decided that dealing directly with Tehran would provide a lifeline to an evil government soon to be swept away by history’s tide. A valuable opportunity to limit Iran’s nuclear program may have been lost as a result. The incoming Obama administration reversed this approach and expressed a willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions. This president (like George H.W. Bush, whose emissaries met with Chinese leaders soon after Tiananmen Square) is cut more from the realist cloth. Diplomacy and negotiations are seen not as favors to bestow but as tools to employ. The other options—using military force against Iranian nuclear facilities or living with an Iranian nuclear bomb—were judged to be tremendously unattractive. And if diplomacy failed, Obama reasoned, it would be easier to build domestic and international support for more robust sanctions. At the time, I agreed with him.
I’ve changed my mind. The nuclear talks are going nowhere. The Iranians appear intent on developing the means to produce a nuclear weapon; there is no other explanation for the secret uranium-enrichment facility discovered near the holy city of Qum. Fortunately, their nuclear program appears to have hit some technical snags, which puts off the need to decide whether to launch a preventive strike. Instead we should be focusing on another fact: Iran may be closer to profound political change than at any time since the revolution that ousted the shah 30 years ago.
The authorities overreached in their blatant manipulation of last June’s presidential election, and then made matters worse by brutally repressing those who protested. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has lost much of his legitimacy, as has the “elected” president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The opposition Green Movement has grown larger and stronger than many predicted.
The United States, European governments, and others should shift their Iran policy toward increasing the prospects for political change. Leaders should speak out for the Iranian people and their rights. President Obama did this on Dec. 28 after several protesters were killed on the Shia holy day of Ashura, and he should do so again. So should congressional and world leaders. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards should be singled out for sanctions. Lists of their extensive financial holdings can be published on the Internet. The United States should press the European Union and others not to trade or provide financing to selected entities controlled by the Guards. Just to cite one example: the Revolutionary Guards now own a majority share of Iran’s principal telecommunications firm; no company should furnish it the technology to deny or monitor Internet use.
New funding for the project housed at Yale University that documents human-rights abuses in Iran is warranted. If the U.S. government won’t reverse its decision not to provide the money, then a foundation or wealthy individuals should step in. Such a registry might deter some members of the Guards or the million-strong Basij militia it controls from attacking or torturing members of the opposition. And even if not, the gesture will signal to Iranians that the world is taking note of their struggle.
It is essential to bolster what people in Iran know. Outsiders can help to provide access to the Internet, the medium that may be the most important means for getting information into Iran and facilitating communication among the opposition. The opposition also needs financial support from the Iranian diaspora so that dissidents can stay politically active once they have lost their jobs.
Just as important as what to do is what to avoid. Congressmen and senior administration figures should avoid meeting with the regime. Any and all help for Iran’s opposition should be nonviolent. Iran’s opposition should be supported by Western governments, not led. In this vein, outsiders should refrain from articulating specific political objectives other than support for democracy and an end to violence and unlawful detention. Sanctions on Iran’s gasoline imports and refining, currently being debated in Congress, should be pursued at the United Nations so international focus does not switch from the illegality of Iran’s behavior to the legality of unilateral American sanctions. Working-level negotiations on the nuclear question should continue. But if there is an unexpected breakthrough, Iran’s reward should be limited. Full normalization of relations should be linked to meaningful reform of Iran’s politics and an end to Tehran’s support of terrorism.
Critics will say promoting regime change will encourage Iranian authorities to tar the opposition as pawns of the West. But the regime is already doing so. Outsiders should act to strengthen the opposition and to deepen rifts among the rulers. This process is underway, and while it will take time, it promises the first good chance in decades to bring about an Iran that, even if less than a model country, would nonetheless act considerably better at home and abroad. Even a realist should recognize that it’s an opportunity not to be missed.
Which is it Mr. Haass…Is the humanitarian crisis in Libya too small or is there just too little oil? Are you a realist or just another political hack?
By: raemd95: Excerpts are quotes from Meet The Press, March 20, 2011; Enough is Enough: By Richard N. Haass, originally published in Newsweek, January 22, 2010
Former Attorney General Mukasey Lobbies For U.S. Chamber To Gut Foreign Bribery Law
Bush’s attorney general (not Gonzales, the much less incompetent but equally malevolent) Michael Mukasey has a new gig in which to ply his talents: making it easier for corporations to bribe foreign governments. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FPCA) is intended to stop U.S.-based multinational corporations from bribing foreign governments. Unlike the previous administration’s Department of Justice, under Mukasey, the Obama DOJ is enforcing the law.
Under Obama, the department collected more than $1 billion in fines during fiscal year 2010, the most the government has collected in the law’s 38-year history, and more than ten times the $87 million collected in 2007 by the Bush Administration.
The U.S. Chamber can’t have that, so of course, they’ve hired Mukasey to lobby Congress to amend the law.
Debevoise & Plimpton, where Mukasey is a partner, filed lobbying registration papers on his behalf this month, according to Senate records. The registration is for the Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform and is effective back to March 3. It covers possible FCPA amendments and other issues “related to criminal law and policies affecting U.S. corporations.”The Chamber has become increasingly critical of the FCPA in recent months. It argues that the law, which allows the U.S. government to seek charges against corporations and individuals for bribes paid to local officials in other countries, is not working well and could be making U.S. companies less competitive.
In October, the Chamber released a policy paper proposing several specific changes to the law. The ideas included adding a “compliance defense,” so that a company could not be held criminally liable when an employee circumvents reasonable internal procedures….
When the Chamber released its proposals, Mukasey attended its annual legal summit and moderated a panel discussion on the FCPA. He noted the sharp rise in the Justice Department’s enforcement of the law during the past decade. “The expansion in prosecutions and investigations of course has brought a great deal of anxiety to companies in the United States,” he said, according to video of the panel.
See, the law “is not working well” when it is actaully enforced, that’s the message from Bush’s attorney general. That’s no great shock, given the Bush administration’s attitude toward the rule of law, but still pretty ironic. From an actual rule of law standpoint, the law seems to be working pretty well as enfroced. But the U.S. Chamber, and Mukasey, certainly can’t have that.
By: Joan McCarter, Daily Kos, March 18, 2011
Make-Believe Billionaire Candidate Donald Trump Is A Birther Now
Donald Trump, a reality show host and savage parody of post-industrial Great Stagnation-era capitalism, is pretending to run for president, as a sort of performance art piece mocking the contemporary fad among elites of celebrating plutocrat billionaires as our wise superiors and pretending their vanity campaigns for elected office are some sort of charitable selfless “public service.”
And he’s really going all-out. What began as a sort of through-a-glass-darkly reimagining of the Bloomberg-for-president chatter added a dose of Gingrichian “false run to promote unrelated money-making endeavors” as he ramped up his “campaign” at precisely the moment the new season of his television show premiered.
Today Trump even became a pseudo-birther, in an interview with ABC News, which was for some reason taking part in an extensive marketing campaign for a television show that airs on a rival network:
“Everybody that even gives a hint of being a birther … even a little bit of a hint, like, gee, you know, maybe, just maybe this much of a chance, they label them as an idiot. Let me tell you, I’m a really smart guy,” he said.
[…]
He explained the source of his doubt: “He grew up and nobody knew him. You know? When you interview people, if ever I got the nomination, if I ever decide to run, you may go back and interview people from my kindergarten. They’ll remember me. Nobody ever comes forward. Nobody knows who he his until later in his life. It’s very strange. The whole thing is very strange,” he added.Yes, very strange, very strange.
Funny story! In 1990, Spy Magazine actually took a trip to Trump’s boyhood home in Queens. And while Trump wrote of being “something of a leader” in his old neighborhood, the owner of the local candy store said: “I’ve been running this store for 28 years, and I don’t remember him.” Strange, very strange.
Trump went on to say that you should take him seriously as a candidate because he’s very rich and would be able to give himself $600 million if for some reason his fake campaign needed $600 million.
That actually gets at the heart of why Trump would never run for anything: He’s spent his entire career in the public eye scrupulously hiding how much money he actually has, in real life. He’s sued people for saying his net worth is less than he says it is. But lots of people have their doubts about whether or not he’d actually be able to give himself $600 million at the drop of a hat. And if he ran for real, as Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman say, “at some point he’d actually be required to disclose his assets.”
Which is obviously not going to happen, because it would ruin the whole joke.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, March 17, 2011
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