Lessons From Libya

for dictators in distress:

To ensure that the president does not focus unduly on your war, schedule it while he is preoccupied with other matters: a Motown concert, a conference on bullying, his golf game, and finalizing his Final Four picks.

Consider restarting your nuclear program, since the conditions that caused you to suspend it are gone. At most, the president will form a committee of several nations to talk to you; he will consider more sanctions if the world speaks as one. You need not worry about his “deadlines.”

Teddy Roosevelt talked about speaking softly and carrying a big stick. This president thinks that you declare things “unacceptable,” and then go pick your brackets.

[Update a few minutes later]

The noose tightens. But not Barack Obama’s.

[Update a few minutes more later]

Some (uncomfortable) questions for Jay Carney:

1) What did the president mean when he said that Colonel Whathisname’s behavior was “unacceptable”? Has he changed it in any way for the better? If not, what does the president propose to do to not accept it?

2) What did the president means when he said that “the noose is tightening” around Colonel Whathisname? Was it around his neck, or his waist, or his wrist? Or his shirt that he’s since taken off? Is it still tightening, or is it loosening again?

12 thoughts on “Lessons From Libya”

  1. And here I thought you were going to say something nasty about speaking big and carrying a soft stick.

  2. Well, if the President was really diplomatic, he’d invite the Libyan rebels and Colonel Whathisname over for a Beer Summit. Maybe when the fighting is over, he can send Hillary over with a reset button.

    Isn’t a great thing that adults occupy the White House now?

  3. In these situations the President has three valid choices and one invalid one, if you believe American prestige is important and worth preserving: (1) To say he’s going to do something, and then to do it; (2) to say he’s not going to do something (or not say that he’s going to do something), and then to not do anything; (3) he can say he’s not going to do something (or not say that he is going to do something), and then do it anyway. Our President, however, made the one invalid choice being (4) to say he’s going to do something and then to *not* do it.

    It may be that he doesn’t care for American prestige, of course, but he certainly made the worst possible decision if he does.

  4. Well, if the President was really diplomatic, he’d invite the Libyan rebels and Colonel Whathisname over for a Beer Summit.

    Surely they must already have their picks for the Final Four…

  5. I disagree, Thomas. I doubt John McCain would be sending the Sixth Fleet in to reprise on a somewhat larger scale the USMC’s 1805 Tripolitan sortie. I think he absorbed the lesson of Vietnam well — fight only to win — and American interests in the region are still murky. (I personally would oppose military intervention, because I oppose as a matter of principle being the world’s policemen — the pay is rotten and not worth the disrespect and hostility everyone always gives the cops.)

    But I think he would not be making the same bold statements as the present Lecturer-in-Chief. Where matters military are concerned, McCain does not seem to have any insecurities for which he needs to compensate at national expense. Or maybe he just snorts less unicorn dust and spends more time in the same area code as Planet Reality, I dunno.

  6. Best comment at NRO:

    Mr. Sandmich

    03/16/11 14:47

    “Any decision by the UN … will come too late.”

    Duh. They could [put] that on the front door of that place.

  7. I’m the odd man out in most conversations about North Africa and the ME, and here’s why.

    It looks to me like all these ‘rebels’ including the Iranians, actually that should be ESPECIALLY the Iranians, are looking to moderate the countries they live in politically.

    They are trying to get out from under, go kill yourself, jet trashing, uber-Islamic leaders, Wahhabist Royalty, Jihadi Imams, and Madmeninjackets, etc. With the exception of the Palestinians that is.

    THE number one problem in the world is Islamic Terrorism. The common people (Muslim cannon fodder) seem to want OUT of that lifestyle. Eventually the Germans and Japanese, at some point, realized their sons were dying for the wrong reasons, led by and killed by oaths sworn to evil men!! And unfortunately the current world leaders are lulled into some kind of dream state where they are doing NOTHING to help them. And they sure as hell aren’t helping the Libyans like the did the Egyptians.

    Why NOT? Can the alternative be worse than Gaddafi and Mubarak and the Iranian Imams? How could it be worse?

    It seems like no one considers that helping the common, poor people of these countries would be a boon to them and us in the long run. And yeah, yeah, yeah I know they are too backward and mind controlled to live in a modern world.

    That’s the same thing that was said about the Germans and the Japanese in 1945!

  8. Obama does care about American prestige. He lowers it every chance he gets.

    The CIA should have cluster bombed their airfields. Those people deserved that little bit of help. The America president should have denied it saying, “We support the right of people of all nations to choose their own leaders.”

    Nothing else would have been required.

  9. Why NOT? Can the alternative be worse than Gaddafi and Mubarak and the Iranian Imams? How could it be worse?

    Suppose Stalin had been the one who’d fled to Mexico and gotten an ice-pick in the head, and Trotsky had had the resources of Russia to pursue world revolution instead of building socialism in one country?

  10. Der Schtumpy,

    I don’t disagree with you; I just haven’t followed well enough to know the motivation of the rebels. If they are indeed the moderates throwing off the shackles of the extremists; then yes, US foreign policy would be totally negligent for not helping them now when they could. But in Egypt, I’m not so sure the Muslim Brotherhood will take over, and while they may be a little less extreme the AQ; there ambition is probably the same in restoring the Caliphate. Personally, again without studying the current events close enough; I think this “awakening” is really a step in speeding up the process of creating the single Caliphate from Morocco to Pakistan.

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