<
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/rubin-reports/libya-not-just-a-
tragedy-but-another-endless-war-for-america/2012/09/14/> Libya: Not Just a
Tragedy, but Another Endless War for America
Libya tells the story with a terrible irony but we should understand
precisely what is going on and how the situation in Libya differs from that
in Egypt. For it is proof of the bankruptcy of Obama policy but perhaps in a
different way from what many people think.
By: <
http://www.jewishpress.com/author/barryrubin/> Barry Rubin
Published: September 15th, 2012
Yahoo highlighted two "amazing" stories shortly after the murder of five
American diplomats in Libya and the attack on the U.S. embassy in Egypt that
tell us a lot about the intersection between American reality and Middle
East reality.
The first article insisted that American officials thought the terror attack
on the U.S. embassy was planned (yeah, I don't think the terrorists were
passing by and just happened to have a rocket with them). The other asked
tentatively whether maybe the "Arab Spring" hadn't worked out so well. It's
almost the end of 2012 and these people are still in kindergarten!
Libya tells the story with a terrible irony but we should understand
precisely what is going on and how the situation in Libya differs from that
in Egypt. For it is proof of the bankruptcy of Obama policy but perhaps in a
different way from what many people think.
So far the U.S. ambassador, four diplomats, and two U.S. soldiers trying to
rescue the rest of the staff have been killed. According to a Libyan officer
whose unit was helping the American rescue effort, the terrorists seemed to
know precisely where the staffers were hiding. Might they have been tipped
off by sources in the Libyan government or military? Probably, yes.
What happened in Libya has nothing to do with an obscure video from
California, it has everything to do with the question of which side rules
Libya. And the relationship of the attacks to the September 11 anniversary
was meant to show that the Libyan terrorists supported September 11 and
wanted to continue that battle.
In one sentence: the problem in Libya is that Obama got what he wanted and
thus set off all the usual Western policy dilemmas-that he always
denounced-which had existed in the region for a century. But Obama is not
only ill-equipped to deal with these problems, he either cannot even
recognize them or interprets them in ways disastrous for U.S. interests. For
whatever reason you would like to attribute, he wants to make nice with
people who want to destroy his country. That might have been a forgivable
naivete in early 2009 but by this point it is clear that Obama will never
change, and that four more years in office will not improve him and his
administration by one millimeter.
Obama decided, although only after what we are told was a titanic inner
struggle, to kill Usama bin Ladin because bin Ladin launched a direct attack
on American soil. But he sees no need to battle those trying to take over
the Middle East and crush its people (including women, Christians,
homosexuals) and wipe Israel off the map. Nor does he see the need to wage
effective struggle with governments that stand and deliberately do nothing
while the American embassy is invaded or the American ambassador is
murdered.
President Barack Obama and U.S. NATO allies got rid of a terrible
dictatorship in Libya. Of course, there were dreadful murders and human
rights' abuses by the rebels-even racist murders of people because they had
black skin, and were thus presumed to be supporters of the old dictator!-but
Libya was too obscure a place and the mass media either didn't care or
wouldn't hold Obama responsible for these things.
Then Obama had a second success in the election, where his client politician
won over the Islamists. True, the new regime gives lip service to Sharia law
but it is not a radical regime but precisely the kind of government, given
the limiting conditions of Libyan society, that the West would want in
Libya.
And now the problem begins. For the great "anti-imperialist" Obama has set
up a classical "imperialist" situation. In Iran, for example, the Eisenhower
Administration helped an existing, legitimate regime stay in power in 1953
and this supposedly led to Iranian radicalism and seizure of the U.S.
embassy a quarter-century later. In Libya, the process may just take a few
months.
The Islamists of various factions, ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to
al-Qaida supporters, loathe the new government and the fact that the United
States is behind it. In other words, Obama has just done what he has been
denouncing his whole life: he interfered in another country and "bullied" it
into submission to America's will. Now he has sent two American warships to
Libya's coasts. Obama's friends call this "gunboat diplomacy."
One special feature of this situation, of course, is that some of those he
helped were anti-American terrorists, armed and trained by NATO. Some of
these people have entered the new military, others are now trying a
stage-two revolution to overthrow the regime and institute a real Islamist
revolution.
Otherwise, though, it follows the usual pattern. The Islamist
revolutionaries have not accepted the status quo and hope to seize state
power and drive out the Americans.
Obama has fallen into precisely the trap he has denounced in all his books
and speeches. True, America is not claiming Libya as its territory but
Obama's friends call this "neo-colonialism" and "post-colonialism." He is
now the patron of the Libyan government. If it is incompetent, corrupt, or
oppresses the people, Obama shares responsibility.
Moreover, as it does all these things and refuses to implement serious
Sharia law lots of Libyans will blame those arrogant, imperialist Americans.
Why shouldn't they want to kill the American diplomats who "supervise" the
status quo and prevent them from turning Libya into Afghanistan under the
Taliban; Iran; Gaza under Hamas; or, somewhat more mildly, Lebanon under a
mainly Hizballah government, and maybe what will happen in Syria at some
point in the future.
What are the Libyan government's options? It can try to appease the
opposition by more Islam. But that won't work really. It can try to appease
the opposition by distancing itself from the United States, but given its
weakness that won't work. And it can try to repress the rebels but since it
cannot depend on its own military forces-which are riddled with
jihadists-that won't work either.
That is the real lesson in Libya. For once, Obama took sides against the
revolutionary Islamists. We are seeing in Egypt and the Gaza Strip that
appeasement doesn't work; we are seeing in Libya that engaging in conflict
has its high costs, too. Obama claims to have "liberated" Libya but to many
Libyans he has enslaved it to infidels.
So what next? American military aid to the Libyan government and U.S.
military advisors? An endless war against the jihadists? And what if the
government in Libya, which is pretty fragile and cannot fully depend on its
own military, starts to fall? In Somalia, the local al-Qaida branch didn't
win only because Ethiopia and other African nations sent in thousands of
troops. In Bahrain-a complicated situation in which there is a mistreated
Shia population whose opposition has both moderates and radicals-the
government was only saved by Saudi troops and against the will of the White
House.
Treating what has happened in Libya as an isolated tragedy misses the point.
Viewing it as generalized proof of Obama's terrible policy doesn't get us to
the solution. There is a battle going on in the Middle East that will
continue for decades. Obama has largely helped the enemy side. In Libya
while he gave some help to the Islamists, his basic policy supported the
moderates for once. Now the price must be paid or one more country fall to
revolutionary Islamist rule and U.S. influence and credibility decline even
further.
This is a war, not a misunderstanding. It is a battle of ideologies and a
struggle for control of state power, not hurt feelings over some obscure
video.
PS: I have a lot of friends in the Foreign Service, now and retired, and I
was very upset about the deaths of five American diplomats and two American
soldiers in Libya. I know this person was a colleague, too. But my goodness,
how horrifyingly revealing is this quote:
"They got the wrong guy," said a friend of the slain Ambassador Christopher
Stevens at the [notoriously anti-Israel, BR] U.S. consulate in Jerusalem,
"If there was someone who cared about the Arab and Muslim world, it was
Chris," who had previously served there as chief of the political section.
"He spoke Arabic, he was dedicated to the cause of the Arabs."
Perhaps this diplomat should give al-Qaida a list of approved Americans they
should be assassinating. In other words, what? It would have been better to
have killed a Foreign Service officer more friendly to Israel? To have
murdered some Republicans or Jews? I'm afraid that this is very frankly how
these people think. And what is "the cause of the Arabs?" Which Arabs? To
wipe Israel off the map? To have radical nationalist dictatorships? To have
Sharia states? At least define your "Arabs" as the genuine moderates,
genuine democrats, genuine liberals or even-since there aren't so many of
those people-those who feel their self-interests basically coincide with
those of the United States.
I find this person's statement even more shocking than the apology over the
mysterious little you-tube film. And yes I have heard this before in
private. OK, an anecdote. I'm sitting with about a dozen U.S. military
officers doing a briefing a couple of years after September 11 and my
co-briefer-a medium-high State Department official in the Middle East
section-starts visibly panicking as he's speaking. "Other issues might
threaten you," he tells them looking really scared, "but only the Israel
issue can endanger your life." I can only report that the looks of contempt
on the face of the officers made me proud of the U.S. army.
Note: I don't mean this as a criticism of all Foreign Service Officers.
There are many good ones. But this reaction from a Jerusalem-based American
diplomat to the death of Ambassador Stevens, plus four diplomats and now two
U.S. soldiers rescuing the rest of the embassy staff is all too revealing.
Perhaps he's just too confused about what country's capital he's in.
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Received on Sat Sep 15 2012 - 06:32:26 EDT
