Libya’s time is now

The Libyan opposition has made a valiant effort, despite limited resources and training, but without support from the international community it seemed inevitable we would be watching a massacre rather than hopefully cheering the fall of a tyrant.

In a few days’ time, an international coalition backed by the U.N. Security Council and supported by the Arab League, has successfully destroyed Libya’s integrated air defense systems and command and control structures and interdicted columns of Qaddafi’s forces seeking to wrest control of Benghazi from the opposition. The controversial no-fly zone, implemented by an unprecedented coalition of nations that includes Qatar, has successfully grounded Qaddafi’s planes.

Despite the success of our military intervention, I know that Qaddafi may prefer a prolonged civil war to exile in Caracas and that we will need all of the tools in the box  — military, diplomatic and economic – to achieve our goals.  I am, however, also confident that absence of action by the international community would have been a decision that we would have greatly regretted.

Qaddafi is a terrorist – the moral equivalent of Osama bin Laden – a man President Ronald Reagan referred to as “this mad dog of the Middle East” because of his relentless instigation of and support for terrorism.

A man who has trained terrorists in North Africa and has proven that his reign of terror extends well beyond his own national and regional borders.  A man who referred to the 1985 slaughter of innocent travelers, including an eleven-year-old American child, by terrorists at the Rome and Vienna airports as a “noble act.”

A man who ordered the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270, including 34 New Jerseyans, and who in 2009 swapped a lucrative oil deal in exchange for the release of the convicted Pan Am bomber.

There is no question that, if given the chance, Qaddafi will continue to support terrorism and, therefore, continue to threaten Americans at home and abroad.

The Senate resolution I authored, which called for the imposition of a no-fly zone, also welcomed the decision of the United Nations Security Council to refer Qaddafi’s actions to the International Criminal Court for acts of genocide.  Qaddafi belongs in a jail cell, not a palace.

I do not support and do not believe that it is in our national interest to have boots on the ground in Libya.  In my view, this would only solidify the kind of anti-American sentiment in Libya that we saw in Iraq.   Qaddafi’s departure is, however, in our national security interest. It is in our interest to use the tools at our disposal to support real change, to embrace the opportunity to support democrats, and to align our actions with our rhetoric – to close the gap between what we say and what we do in the Middle East, recognizing that political freedom and economic opportunity are the most effective tools to deter extremism and terrorism.

Perhaps the stars aren’t perfectly aligned, but the opportunity for real change is here now. There isn’t an option to postpone and come back later when U.S. troops are out of Afghanistan and the national economic glass is closer to half full than half empty. After 42 years, Qaddafi’s reign of terror must end. At this unique moment in time, the world largely concurs that Qaddafi’s mandate, if he ever had one, has expired and that his actions demand intervention to protect innocent lives and to seize this once is a lifetime opportunity for change.

Not only is it in our national security, it is the right thing to do, and the time to do it is now.