Obama's Libya debacle - How a Well-Meaning Intervention Ended in Failure

[Axulus]

Another cautionary tale of US and NATO intervention into foreign countries, and the middle east in particular. Will we ever learn?

“We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi—a city nearly the size of Charlotte—could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world,” Obama declared. Two days after the UN authorization, the United States and other NATO countries established a no-fly zone throughout Libya and started bombing Qaddafi’s forces. Seven months later, in October 2011, after an extended military campaign with sustained Western support, rebel forces conquered the country and shot Qaddafi dead.

In the immediate wake of the military victory, U.S. officials were triumphant. Writing in these pages in 2012, Ivo Daalder, then the U.S. permanent representative to NATO, and James Stavridis, then supreme allied commander of Europe, declared, “NATO’s operation in Libya has rightly been hailed as a model intervention.” In the Rose Garden after Qaddafi’s death, Obama himself crowed, “Without putting a single U.S. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives.” Indeed, the United States seemed to have scored a hat trick: nurturing the Arab Spring, averting a Rwanda-like genocide, and eliminating Libya as a potential source of terrorism. 


That verdict, however, turns out to have been premature. In retrospect, Obama’s intervention in Libya was an abject failure, judged even by its own standards. Libya has not only failed to evolve into a democracy; it has devolved into a failed state. Violent deaths and other human rights abuses have increased severalfold. Rather than helping the United States combat terrorism, as Qaddafi did during his last decade in power, Libya now serves as a safe haven for militias affiliated with both al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). The Libya intervention has harmed other U.S. interests as well: undermining nuclear nonproliferation, chilling Russian cooperation at the UN, and fueling Syria’s civil war.


Despite what defenders of the mission claim, there was a better policy available—not intervening at all, because peaceful Libyan civilians were not actually being targeted. Had the United States and its allies followed that course, they could have spared Libya from the resulting chaos and given it a chance of progress under Qaddafi’s chosen successor: his relatively liberal, Western-educated son Saif al-Islam. Instead, Libya today is riddled with vicious militias and anti-American terrorists—and thus serves as a cautionary tale of how humanitarian intervention can backfire for both the intervener and those it is intended to help.


Much more:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/143044/alan-j-kuperman/obamas-libya-debacle

As terrible as it is to say, Iraq was much better under Saddam, and Libya was much better under Qaddafi. Isn't it about time we stop messing the place up with our military interventions? We should be playing a more humanitarian role when humanitarian crises emerge, engaging in alliances when opportunities arise (but not in doing so prop up corrupt authoritarian governments, to the extent that we can), encouraging them to adopt liberal values, and otherwise stay the hell out.

 

[barbos]

As terrible as it is to say, Iraq was much better under Saddam, and Libya was much better under Qaddafi. Isn't it about time we stop messing the place up with our military interventions?

Yes, it's about time.
And Ukraine was much better under Yanukovich.

 

[arkirk]

As terrible as it is to say, Iraq was much better under Saddam, and Libya was much better under Qaddafi. Isn't it about time we stop messing the place up with our military interventions?

Yes, it's about time.
And Ukraine was much better under Yanukovich.

Also, how "well meaning" can squadrons of planes bombing and strafing. How well meaning can any of his fly by wire violent interventions be? Obama is as mean spirited as any of the middle eastern leaders. He just has different targets.

 

[Earl IV]

As noble the cause of spreading democracy is, it seems there are certain groups of people that require a dictatorship to keep their house in order.

I mean, if "the will of the people" is to constantly bicker and fight each other, someone needs to take charge and reach into the back seat with a smack up side the head.

 

[Draconis]

As noble the cause of spreading democracy is, it seems there are certain groups of people that require a dictatorship to keep their house in order.

They have a dictatorship - it's called religion.

 

[funinspace]

But we can't stop now; Asaad isn't dead yet. Then we will have helped another nation free itself from the shackles of a (non-US supporting) dictator.

 

[laughing dog]

As terrible as it is to say, Iraq was much better under Saddam, and Libya was much better under Qaddafi.

Much better how? I am sure there are Iraqis and Libyans who vehemently disagree.

 

[Axulus]

As terrible as it is to say, Iraq was much better under Saddam, and Libya was much better under Qaddafi.

Much better how? I am sure there are Iraqis and Libyans who vehemently disagree.

Did you read the full article? I think it made the case pretty well. Was there something specific you disagreed with? Under those "Libyans who vehemently disagree", are you including all the dead ones and all the ones whose rights are being abused? Are you including the ones who are increasingly coming under ISIS control?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Wasn't the Libya operation a majority France thing?

 

[Axulus]

Wasn't the Libya operation a majority France thing?

It was NATO led with France and the UK being the biggest supporters, backed up strongly by the US, with Obama and Clinton arguing in favor of military intervention.

 

[Axulus]

One thing Iran learned from all of this: if you don't have nukes, even if you have been cooperating with the West, they'll drop you like a brick and attack you the moment political instability hits your country.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Wasn't the Libya operation a majority France thing?

It was NATO led with France and the UK being the biggest supporters, backed up strongly by the US, with Obama and Clinton arguing in favor of military intervention.

So this isn't Obama's Libya Debacle then?

 

[Axulus]

It was NATO led with France and the UK being the biggest supporters, backed up strongly by the US, with Obama and Clinton arguing in favor of military intervention.

So this isn't Obama's Libya Debacle then?

That was the title of the article - it is NATOs Libya debacle, with Obama and Clinton playing a leadership role in the ordeal.

 

[dismal]

Lest we forget there was a time where people were worried Obama was not getting enough credit for his success in Libya:

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

10.21.11

Should Obama Get Credit?

The death of Muammar Gaddafi is the latest foreign-policy success for the president, but as with the killing of Osama bin Laden, he seems to be reaping little political benefit.

After rolling up a string of successes at capturing and killing the worst of the worst, President Obama polls 10 to 15 points higher on national security than on almost any other issue. On the economy, there is a 20-point gap with his numbers on national security. Barack Obama going after bad guys all over the globe is not what the American people expected when they elected him, and it’s not the Obama that Republicans thought they would be running against.

Obama has made some big bets on national security, and they’ve paid off handsomely. Republicans and some Democrats criticized his decision to intervene militarily in Libya: some saying he waited too long or shouldn’t have put NATO in charge, others that he should have stayed out. But the news Thursday that longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi had been killed—his regime toppled at minimal cost and with no loss of American life—vindicates the president’s decision.

...

The president took credit in a low-key statement before the cameras Thursday, praising America’s soldiers and sailors as well as “our leadership at NATO” that “helped guide our coalition…Working in Libya with friends and allies, we’ve demonstrated what collective action can achieve in the 21st century.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...hould-obama-get-credit-for-libya-success.html

 

[Ford]

It was NATO led with France and the UK being the biggest supporters, backed up strongly by the US, with Obama and Clinton arguing in favor of military intervention.

So this isn't Obama's Libya Debacle then?

Well it certainly had nothing to do with the Libyans who rebelled against their dictator.

 

[Axulus]

So this isn't Obama's Libya Debacle then?

Well it certainly had nothing to do with the Libyans who rebelled against their dictator.

We picked a side and allowed them to win with our military intervention. That obviously has far different consequences than a scenario where we stayed out and the rebellion was stopped.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So this isn't Obama's Libya Debacle then?

That was the title of the article...

Also the title of the OP. Don't try and defend a poor title for your OP on the editor of the article you are citing.

it is NATOs Libya debacle, with Obama and Clinton playing a leadership role in the ordeal.

Well, you seem to be implying the "a leadership role" as "the leadership role".

 

[Axulus]

That was the title of the article...

Also the title of the OP. Don't try and defend a poor title for your OP on the editor of the article you are citing.

it is NATOs Libya debacle, with Obama and Clinton playing a leadership role in the ordeal.

Well, you seem to be implying the "a leadership role" as "the leadership role".

Why not focus on the contents rather than nitpick the title? I already conceded it was NATO's debacle, so I don't get your angle.

 

[laughing dog]

Much better how? I am sure there are Iraqis and Libyans who vehemently disagree.

Did you read the full article? I think it made the case pretty well.

Good for you.

Was there something specific you disagreed with? Under those "Libyans who vehemently disagree", are you including all the dead ones and all the ones whose rights are being abused? Are you including the ones who are increasingly coming under ISIS control?

You seem to be willing to ignore all the Iraqis would be discriminated against, imprisoned, tortured or dead if Saddam were in power, and the Libyans who would be discriminated against, imprisoned, tortured or dead if Qaddafi was still in power. I think our invasion of Iraq was wrong for a number of reasons, but I find it the argument against our involvement in Libya to be naive.

 

[Axulus]

Did you read the full article? I think it made the case pretty well.

Good for you.

Was there something specific you disagreed with? Under those "Libyans who vehemently disagree", are you including all the dead ones and all the ones whose rights are being abused? Are you including the ones who are increasingly coming under ISIS control?

You seem to be willing to ignore all the Iraqis would be discriminated against, imprisoned, tortured or dead if Saddam were in power, and the Libyans who would be discriminated against, imprisoned, tortured or dead if Qaddafi was still in power. I think our invasion of Iraq was wrong for a number of reasons, but I find it the argument against our involvement in Libya to be naive.

I didn't ignore them, and you obviously haven't read the article which made a strong case for those numbers being several-fold higher as a result of the NATO led overthrow. Not to mention the other problems it caused (plausibility contributing to the amount of violence in Syria, diminishment of non-proliferation goals, diminisment of other middle eastern governments' willingness to cooperate with the west, among other things).