White House says Libya decision based on ‘best interests’

No sense of precedent guided President Obama’s decision to intervene in Libya, administration officials said Monday.

“We don’t make decisions about questions like intervention based on consistency or precedent,” said Denis McDonough, the administration’s deputy
national security adviser, amid an off-camera gaggle of reporters. “We make them based on how we can best advance our interests in the region.”

McDonough was speaking hours before President Obama’s speech
Monday night on Libya. He explained that there were compelling reasons to get
involved in Libya as opposed to Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria, four other
countries in the Middle East where pro-democracy crowds have battled
authoritarian governments.

{mosads}Administration officials wouldn’t outline the contents of
Obama’s speech, and McDonough’s remarks suggest Obama is unlikely to lay out
any doctrine encompassing the administration’s philosophy for intervening in foreign conflicts.

Obama will make his case for the short-lived U.S. military
offensive in Libya to the public in a speech Monday night from the National
Defense University in Washington.

The speech will provide the president his greatest
opportunity so far to take his case for intervention in Libya to the public.

Polls have found mixed views on Obama’s decision to join
other United Nations members in air strikes against Libya. Lawmakers in both
parties have criticized the White House for a lack of consultations, and Speaker
John Boehner (R-Ohio) slammed a “sometimes contradictory” explanation for the
action.

Monday’s speech is part of a blitz by the White House to win
support from the public and Congress for Obama’s actions. After Monday’s address,
Obama on Tuesday will sit for interviews with the anchors of NBC, ABC and CBS.

McDonough emphasized the differences between the situation
in Libya and clashes between anti-government demonstrators and ruling
governments in other countries in the Middle East.

In particular, McDonough referenced Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s
direct threats of violence against some of his own citizens as part of the
reason the U.S. felt compelled to get its military involved in Libya.

Obama sought to reach out to lawmakers last week by
providing a briefing to top members of Congress in both parties and from both
chambers, notifying them of the progress of military operations and the eventual
transfer in responsibility for the operation to NATO, which took charge on
Sunday evening.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said that the White
House had no objections to lawmakers asking questions, though he strongly
rebuffed the notion that the administration hadn’t been fully forthcoming in
its briefings of lawmakers.

“Questions are legitimate; they deserve to be answered,” he
said. “We have endeavored to answer them.”