By MARK LANDLER
WASHINGTON — For President Obama, who told Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi last week that it was time to quit, the bloodshed and terror in Libya have posed a dilemma that sooner or later confronts every modern American president: whether, and how, to intervene with military force in a distant conflict.
This time, the choice has been made even tougher by history, geography and the peculiar circumstances of Libya’s upheaval: a famously ruthless and unpredictable leader willing to do anything to cling to power, in a conflict that seems as much an African civil war as an Internet-fueled youth revolt of the kind that forced out Arab dictators in Egypt and Tunisia.
Mr. Obama’s blunt call last Thursday for Colonel Qaddafi to leave office, coupled with a threat to leave all military options on the table if he doesn’t, made it clear that the president believes the United States cannot stand by while Libyan jets bomb civilians. But his reluctance to talk about the most obvious measure — a no-flight zone over the country — reveals his qualms about thrusting the United States into a volatile situation in a region where foreign intervention is usually viewed as cynical neo-colonialism.
Tough as these issues are, the president is walking a well-trod path, one that has vexed predecessors who include Ronald Reagan (Lebanon) , George H. W. Bush (Iraq and Somalia), Bill Clinton (Bosnia and Kosovo) and George W. Bush (Darfur). Mr. Clinton wrote that his “failure to try to stop Rwanda’s tragedies became one of the greatest regrets of my presidency,” saying he was preoccupied at the time of the genocide by Bosnia, and seared by the memory of American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia.
There is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t element to the calculation, said Gary Bass, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton who has written about humanitarian interventions. “If you go in early, so that you save the maximum number of human lives, people accuse you of overreacting,” he said. “If you go in late, so no one really accuses you of overreacting, you will leave a lot of dead bodies.”
Complicating matters, Mr. Obama inherited two wars in Muslim lands, which would seem to offer an argument for not getting entangled in a third. Mr. Obama, in his 2009 speech to the Muslim world from Cairo, took pains to say that America had no imperial designs on Iraq or Afghanistan — a pledge that would be sorely tested if American military forces entered another Arab country, even if for humanitarian reasons.
The fact that protesters in Egypt and Tunisia were able to drum out their leaders without the help of American F-16s is viewed inside the White House as a big victory. Making sure that young Arabs feel “ownership” of their political movements has been a central piece of the administration’s strategy, even if it has exposed Mr. Obama to criticism that he is not doing enough to stop violence when it occurs.
There are other, more practical, reasons for the administration to tread carefully. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said last week the United States could ill afford another intractable land war in the Middle East. Even a no-flight zone, he said, would be complex and risky, since American warplanes would first have to destroy Libya’s air defense systems.
His skepticism is reminiscent of Gen. Colin L. Powell’s in 1992, when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Officials in the George H. W. Bush administration were contemplating a no-flight zone over Bosnia to help curb Serbian ethnic cleansing of Muslims, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain was suggesting limited airstrikes. “As soon as they tell me it is limited, it means they do not care whether you achieve a result or not,” Mr. Powell said to The New York Times. “As soon as they tell me ‘surgical,’ I head for the bunker.”
And yet, the Clinton administration later persuaded the United Nations to extend a no-flight zone over Bosnia, which helped to stem Serbian killing of Muslims for a time. And arguments that limited airstrikes can’t work were belied in Kosovo, where 78 days of NATO strikes in 1999 stopped Serbia’s leader, Slobodan Milosevic, from persecuting the ethnic Albanian population. Proponents of a no-flight zone also say that in the decade after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, America and its allies used the tactic effectively to shield northern Iraq’s Kurds and, in the south, Shiites whose unaided 1991 revolt had failed.
These precedents are now being marshaled by lawmakers like Senators John McCain and Joseph I. Lieberman, both of whom support a no-flight zone over Libya. “We did it for a long time and quite successfully in Iraq,” Mr. Lieberman noted. Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is a key foreign-policy ally of the administration, also insisted that Mr. Obama keep that option open.
“Nobody wants to see the United States or NATO shooting down Libyan planes,” said Tom Malinowski, the director of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch, who praised the administration’s approach. “What everybody wants is for the right signals to be sent to the Libyan government.”
Mr. Obama has told his staff to study previous uprisings in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia for lessons about how they unfolded and what role the United States played. He won’t lack for impassioned advice: Among his staff members is Samantha Power, a human-rights expert who won a Pulitzer Prize for a book chronicling American foreign-policy responses to genocide.
Former officials are also taking up the call. Anne-Marie Slaughter, who recently resigned as the State Department’s director of policy planning, said in a tweet: “The international community cannot stand by and watch the massacre of Libyan protesters. In Rwanda we watched. In Kosovo we acted.”
Ms. Slaughter, a former dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, said winning support for a no-flight zone in the United Nations Security Council would be tricky, given Russian and Chinese resistance. Instead, she favors a request by a provisional government in Libya, endorsed by the African Union and the Arab League.
The trouble is figuring out who might make up such a government. In many ways, Libya is largely a mystery. Also, the American ambassador, Gene A. Cretz, has had to reach out to its opposition figures from Washington. He was recalled because of fears he would be harmed after his name appeared on secret cables, made public by WikiLeaks, in which he discussed embarrassing details about Mr. Qaddafi.
The question is also complicated by the way Libya appears to be splintering: along tribal lines, with the historically rebellious east falling quickly to the rebels while western Libya, traditionally more loyal to Colonel Qaddafi, remains under his control. While none of this argues for keeping the colonel in power, it does suggest the challenges the United States would face in trying to mediate between groups after he is gone.
Mr. Obama, in his public statements, spoke last week of much more limited involvement. As the fighting continued, he was stressing relief efforts, like evacuating Egyptian refugees from the Libyan-Tunisian border; already in force were sanctions against the Libyan government that have tied up more than $30 billion in funds. But the president deflected an opportunity to articulate an “Obama doctrine” for the Middle East, instead keeping all options open even as American military vessels and planes headed for the region to assist in the evacuations.
Given the complexities, Mr. Obama seemed almost relieved last week when a reporter at a news conference asked him a double-barreled question about Libya’s unrest and a labor dispute in the National Football League. “Let me deal with football first,” he said with a grin.
This time, the choice has been made even tougher by history, geography and the peculiar circumstances of Libya’s upheaval: a famously ruthless and unpredictable leader willing to do anything to cling to power, in a conflict that seems as much an African civil war as an Internet-fueled youth revolt of the kind that forced out Arab dictators in Egypt and Tunisia.
Mr. Obama’s blunt call last Thursday for Colonel Qaddafi to leave office, coupled with a threat to leave all military options on the table if he doesn’t, made it clear that the president believes the United States cannot stand by while Libyan jets bomb civilians. But his reluctance to talk about the most obvious measure — a no-flight zone over the country — reveals his qualms about thrusting the United States into a volatile situation in a region where foreign intervention is usually viewed as cynical neo-colonialism.
Tough as these issues are, the president is walking a well-trod path, one that has vexed predecessors who include Ronald Reagan (Lebanon) , George H. W. Bush (Iraq and Somalia), Bill Clinton (Bosnia and Kosovo) and George W. Bush (Darfur). Mr. Clinton wrote that his “failure to try to stop Rwanda’s tragedies became one of the greatest regrets of my presidency,” saying he was preoccupied at the time of the genocide by Bosnia, and seared by the memory of American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia.
There is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t element to the calculation, said Gary Bass, a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton who has written about humanitarian interventions. “If you go in early, so that you save the maximum number of human lives, people accuse you of overreacting,” he said. “If you go in late, so no one really accuses you of overreacting, you will leave a lot of dead bodies.”
Complicating matters, Mr. Obama inherited two wars in Muslim lands, which would seem to offer an argument for not getting entangled in a third. Mr. Obama, in his 2009 speech to the Muslim world from Cairo, took pains to say that America had no imperial designs on Iraq or Afghanistan — a pledge that would be sorely tested if American military forces entered another Arab country, even if for humanitarian reasons.
The fact that protesters in Egypt and Tunisia were able to drum out their leaders without the help of American F-16s is viewed inside the White House as a big victory. Making sure that young Arabs feel “ownership” of their political movements has been a central piece of the administration’s strategy, even if it has exposed Mr. Obama to criticism that he is not doing enough to stop violence when it occurs.
There are other, more practical, reasons for the administration to tread carefully. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said last week the United States could ill afford another intractable land war in the Middle East. Even a no-flight zone, he said, would be complex and risky, since American warplanes would first have to destroy Libya’s air defense systems.
His skepticism is reminiscent of Gen. Colin L. Powell’s in 1992, when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Officials in the George H. W. Bush administration were contemplating a no-flight zone over Bosnia to help curb Serbian ethnic cleansing of Muslims, and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain was suggesting limited airstrikes. “As soon as they tell me it is limited, it means they do not care whether you achieve a result or not,” Mr. Powell said to The New York Times. “As soon as they tell me ‘surgical,’ I head for the bunker.”
And yet, the Clinton administration later persuaded the United Nations to extend a no-flight zone over Bosnia, which helped to stem Serbian killing of Muslims for a time. And arguments that limited airstrikes can’t work were belied in Kosovo, where 78 days of NATO strikes in 1999 stopped Serbia’s leader, Slobodan Milosevic, from persecuting the ethnic Albanian population. Proponents of a no-flight zone also say that in the decade after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, America and its allies used the tactic effectively to shield northern Iraq’s Kurds and, in the south, Shiites whose unaided 1991 revolt had failed.
These precedents are now being marshaled by lawmakers like Senators John McCain and Joseph I. Lieberman, both of whom support a no-flight zone over Libya. “We did it for a long time and quite successfully in Iraq,” Mr. Lieberman noted. Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is a key foreign-policy ally of the administration, also insisted that Mr. Obama keep that option open.
“Nobody wants to see the United States or NATO shooting down Libyan planes,” said Tom Malinowski, the director of the Washington office of Human Rights Watch, who praised the administration’s approach. “What everybody wants is for the right signals to be sent to the Libyan government.”
Mr. Obama has told his staff to study previous uprisings in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia for lessons about how they unfolded and what role the United States played. He won’t lack for impassioned advice: Among his staff members is Samantha Power, a human-rights expert who won a Pulitzer Prize for a book chronicling American foreign-policy responses to genocide.
Former officials are also taking up the call. Anne-Marie Slaughter, who recently resigned as the State Department’s director of policy planning, said in a tweet: “The international community cannot stand by and watch the massacre of Libyan protesters. In Rwanda we watched. In Kosovo we acted.”
Ms. Slaughter, a former dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, said winning support for a no-flight zone in the United Nations Security Council would be tricky, given Russian and Chinese resistance. Instead, she favors a request by a provisional government in Libya, endorsed by the African Union and the Arab League.
The trouble is figuring out who might make up such a government. In many ways, Libya is largely a mystery. Also, the American ambassador, Gene A. Cretz, has had to reach out to its opposition figures from Washington. He was recalled because of fears he would be harmed after his name appeared on secret cables, made public by WikiLeaks, in which he discussed embarrassing details about Mr. Qaddafi.
The question is also complicated by the way Libya appears to be splintering: along tribal lines, with the historically rebellious east falling quickly to the rebels while western Libya, traditionally more loyal to Colonel Qaddafi, remains under his control. While none of this argues for keeping the colonel in power, it does suggest the challenges the United States would face in trying to mediate between groups after he is gone.
Mr. Obama, in his public statements, spoke last week of much more limited involvement. As the fighting continued, he was stressing relief efforts, like evacuating Egyptian refugees from the Libyan-Tunisian border; already in force were sanctions against the Libyan government that have tied up more than $30 billion in funds. But the president deflected an opportunity to articulate an “Obama doctrine” for the Middle East, instead keeping all options open even as American military vessels and planes headed for the region to assist in the evacuations.
Given the complexities, Mr. Obama seemed almost relieved last week when a reporter at a news conference asked him a double-barreled question about Libya’s unrest and a labor dispute in the National Football League. “Let me deal with football first,” he said with a grin.
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