Stop dithering on Libya

“If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly.”
President Obama would do well to heed the words of Macbeth, speaking
before he assassinated King Duncan, having decided to deploy two
Predators in the fight against the Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

As Defense Secretary Bob Gates said yesterday, this is not mission creep. The mission creep was already in the U.N. resolution authorizing “all necessary measures” in support of Libya’s civilian population. The leaders of the U.S., Britain and France are on the record saying that their political goal is the removal of Gadhafi from power.

{mosads}The problem is that it is not being done quickly because of the half-hearted measures adopted so far. There has been much hand-wringing in Europe about a handful of military advisers for the Libyan opposition. However the U.N. resolution specifically excludes “a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory.” That does not exclude “boots on the ground.”

Senior administration officials (but not Obama) have been talking about the Libya strategy this week. Vice President Joe Biden and Gates both said that compared to the stakes in Egypt, U.S. strategic interests in Libya don’t even come close. That’s why the U.S. wants to remain in the back seat and let Europe take the lead where its “vital interests” are concerned.

Did NATO think that Gadhafi’s regime would collapse like Saddam Hussein’s, or Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt? Each country is different, as we can see in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is showing signs of panic after failing to quell the uprising against his police state. There’s a country that should represent U.S. vital interests, as a gateway to Iran and to peace in the Middle East.

In Libya, it is time to stop dithering. The fact is that we are in this war. It might be the wrong war but we are in it. If the U.S. continues to stand on the sidelines in an alliance that it leads, we will have the wrong result too.