Obama not ruling out military action in Libya

President Obama will telephone French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday to discuss the ongoing unrest in Libya, White House press secretary Jay Carney said. 

The leaders will discuss potential options for the West to take against the Libyan government, which has been led for 40 years by Moammar Gadhafi.

{mosads}”They will be discussing Libya, and they will be discussing different options we can take … to affect the behavior of the Libyan government,” Carney said at his daily press briefing. “I’m sure, broadly speaking, many options will be discussed.”

Carney would not rule out any options against Libya, including U.S.
military forces intervening in the country, a NATO-enforced no-fly zone —
which has been proposed by France — or a round of sanctions against the
government.

The administration has been closely watching the situation in Libya, where hundreds are believed to have been killed as pro-democracy protests against Gadhafi have morphed into all-out violence. 

President Obama spoke out Wednesday on Libya for the first time since the unrest began. Without using his name, Obama hit Gadhafi for violating “international norms and every notion of common decency.”

“These are human rights,” Obama said. “They are not negotiable.”

Carney stressed in his briefing that the U.S. is “interested in acting quickly.”

“Our position on the unrest in these countries is not about an individual leader,” Carney sad. “It is about the responsibility a government has to not respond to its citizens with violence” and to move forward with reforms.

Carney said it is the federal government’s “top priority” to protect U.S. citizens stuck in Libya and that it is important to make sure the U.S. does not dictate the outcome of the protests.

“It’s not about the United States dictating outcomes,” he said.