FINALLY - ACTION AGAINST LIBYA
My latest at FrontPage.com is up and it’s about the UN action taken yesterday authorizing military action against Gaddafi.
At a contentious G-8 meeting on Monday in Paris, Clinton was reduced to a sideline observer as diplomats tried to hash out a course of action on Libya. Repeated urgings from participants for a stronger U.S. response in the near term was met with silence from the U.S. Secretary of State. One diplomat told Foreign Policy Magazine, “Frankly we are just completely puzzled,” the diplomat said. “We are wondering if this is a priority for the United States.” Later, in a private meeting with President Sarkozy, Mrs. Clinton could only say repeatedly that “there are difficulties,” when queried about a stronger U.S. response. It is unclear whether she was referring to difficulties caused by Russia at the UN or difficulties at the White House with getting Obama to make a decision.
Indeed, a Clinton “insider” told Joshua Hersh of The Daily that Mrs. Clinton was “fed up” with “a president who couldn’t make up his mind,” and was looking for a way out. Clinton told Wolf Blitzer that she had no desire to serve in a second Obama administration, nor did she express interest in running for president again. The source described to Hersh the Obama foreign policy shop, saying, “It’s amateur night,” and that Clinton had grown tired of the administration’s waffling. She had opened the State Department to the former staff at the Libyan embassy, giving them an office and worked hard to get the Arab League to back the no-fly zone.
And yet, by Wednesday afternoon, the administration had completely abandoned its previous somnolent stance on Libya, and came out strongly at the United Nations for a no-fly zone and what is being referred to as a “no-drive zone” to prevent Gaddafi’s tanks and armored personnel carriers from attacking the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Both actions will involve air strikes. And given the nature of the battle zone, only precision weapons and stealth technology will be effective against Gaddafi’s forces while sparing the civilian population as much as possible. That means that the burden for any military action will necessarily fall on America.
The obvious question is, what had happened in the 48 hours between the G-8 meeting on Monday and the administration’s flip-flop on Wednesday?
The answer is a massive counterattack by pro-Gaddafi forces over the past 10 days that now threatens the rebels’ hold on their unofficial capital city of Benghaizi.
Read the whole thing.