LIBYA: WHY ARE WE THERE?

Recently I wrote a piece called Snake Bit in which I wrote that I hoped Presidnet Obama would pull an Eisenhower - i.e. After fomenting the Hungarian uprising, just walk away from it (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/03/snake-bit.html). Pulling an Eisenhower, however, was more difficult because President Obama said that Qaddafi must go. To quote from Snake Bit: I think that it was criticism of our president for not taking sides earlier in the Egypt rebellion that got him to say that Qaddafi must go. And the Tunisian uprising was successful also.

It seems to me that Qaddafi has been behaving himself pretty well in recent years. He gave up trying to get nuclear armaments after a promise that we would not seek regime change in Libya. I haven't heard that he had been playing cute with oil. Should we be surprised that he wanted to put down an armed insurrection in his country?

The main excuse for going into Libya with airpower is to save lives of those in East Libya. Though it is uneven, liberals do have a feeling for helping revolutionaries against dictatorial regimes - witness what was an unpopular Kosovo War by President Clinton. Although it is tempting to think that oil has something to do with our participation in the Libyan War, it very well could be that humanitarian considerations are responsible. After all, oil matters were not a consideration in the Kosovo War.

The Kosovo War is also interesting in that it is the only war I know about that was won by air power alone, without American casualties, and perhaps Obama was led to believe the same can be done in Libya. After all, Sec. Clinton is in the Obama administration. There is a difference, however. In Kosovo there was a no fly zone, and, in addition, we set about destroying the infrastructure of the county, in particular destroying bridges to prevent the advance of tanks while also harming communication of all types throughout Serbia. But is the terrain in Libya conducive to regime change by destroying infrastructure? There was some inkling that this may be the approach because of news about the destruction oil depot.

Our involvement in the Libyan war seems to be cemented because President Obama reiterated that Qaddafi must go. Now it would appear that we are in it to the end, apparently doing whatever it takes to depose the dictator. But even if we were in it to protect the East Libyan revolutionaries from the Qaddafi regime, it would appear we, or someone, would be involved for a long time. Sort of like the Clinton low-level war in Iraq in the 1990s with a no fly zone to protect the Kurds from the Iraqi dictatorship (and what was called by some "fly by shootings") In theory the long involvement need not necessarily be us but might be some combination of the Brutish and French.

Though at present we do not know the outcome of the Libyan War, one hopes it does not do for Obama what the failed rescue in the desert (Operation Iron Claw) did for President Carter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw) by participating in his defeat for reelection. On the other hand, Bush-43 never paid a political price for neither capturing or killing Osama bin Laden as he promised to do. I guess we will just have to see.