President Obama’s Cynical Abdication of Leadership in Libya

© 2011 Peter Free

 

25 March 2011

 

 

A geopolitically stupid intervention in Libya has become insanely incompetent — thanks to a President who avoids leadership’s responsibilities at all costs

 

President Obama’s ill-advised intervention in Libya proved him (again) to be ignorant of History’s lessons and unwilling to recognize the enormity that war always brings with it.

 

Today, his juvenile attempts to hand leadership off to other nations, who are clearly incompetent to wield it, demonstrate that he lacks President George W. Bush’s willingness to carry the burden of leadership in directions that Bush thought (wrongly) were appropriate.  George W. Bush had spine, even when he was mistaken and most of the country knew it.

 

President Obama, in contrast, is unwilling to do much of anything that requires courage, commitment, extended explanation, or leadership.

 

The President is too much a noodle to bear the burdens of the Constitution-flouting kingship he criticized so fervently under President Bush and grasped onto so determinedly once elected.

 

President Obama is, in short, a shrewd politician, but a dangerous command-fool.

 

That character deficiency is concerning because our military and our nation are daily put at risk with his cynically-motivated political game-playing.

 

 

Accurate insights (in his admittedly biased context) from Charles Krauthammer

 

Charles Krauthammer and I may not agree on much when it comes to the wise exercise of American power, but we both recognize a commander-in-chief who falls woefully short of the ingredients necessary to successfully command the nation.

 

Krauthammer’s overview of the Libyan situation is darkly humorous and arguably somewhat unfair.  He places too much weight on opinions from Brazil, China, Germany, and Russia, all of whom abstained from the United Nations resolution that authorized the Administration’s no-fly zone.

 

Yet, the cumulative impact of what Krauthammer is saying rings true.  Exceptionally shaky alliances are not a good place to hang a strategy hat:

 

Well, let’s see how that paper multilateralism is doing. The Arab League is already reversing itself, criticizing the use of force it had just authorized.

 

Russia’s Vladimir Putin is already calling the Libya operation a medieval crusade.

 

 China is calling for a cease-fire in place . . . .

 

Brazil joined China in that call for a cease-fire. This just hours after Obama ended his fawning two-day Brazil visit.

 

Britain wanted the operation to be led by NATO. France adamantly disagreed, citing Arab sensibilities.

 

Germany wanted no part of anything . . . .

 

Italy hinted it might deny the allies the use of its air bases if NATO can’t get its act together.

 

France and Germany walked out of a NATO meeting on Monday . . .

 

Norway had planes in Crete ready to go but refused to let them fly until it had some idea who the hell is running the operation.

 

And Turkey. . . has been particularly resistant to the Libya operation from the beginning.

 

This confusion is purely the result of Obama’s decision to get America into the war and then immediately relinquish American command.

 

© 2011 Charles Krauthammer, Obama and Libya: The professor’s war, Washington Post (24 March 2011)

 

Despite taking potshots at the inevitable difficulties that alliances bring with them, Mr. Krauthammer’s conclusion is correct.

 

The President threw confusion into the mix by abdicating the very leadership that he had exercised in order to get the intervention diplomatically authorized.

 

The unfavorable comparison that Krauthammer did not make, but could have, would be to President Bush the First’s diplomatic triumph in building the First Gulf War’s allied coalition and holding it together.  President Bush I was a command grownup.  The current President has yet to show that kind of maturity in the exercise of leadership.

 

 

Conclusion — cynical political manipulation is undesirable in the military’s commander-in-chief

 

As I said a few days ago, don’t start down a path that will take you to the strategically-poor place that a smart person would avoid going at all costs.

 

And if you do make that mistake, don’t foist the error off on your allies.

 

These are deficiencies of strategic vision, geopolitical intelligence, and basic command character.