Obama's Speech on Libya

President Obama faced a tough audience last night. A nation tired of wars overseas and skeptical about anything our government would say to rationalize military actions. The damage done by the last Administration to America's own belief in our intelligence services or political officials created the emotional backdrop to last night's speech.

The anti-war Left, which has always been critical of President Obama's acceptance of military force,has galvanized over the alleged constitutional issues involved. The Right abhor multi-lateralism and oppose anything short of "regime change" done unilaterally.

And add to this the endless series of disasters and crises over the last two years that have induced an empathy fatigue--Haiti,Darfur, the BP oil spill, the Japan Tsunami, Japan's nuclear meltdown , the popular revolts in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Yemen,Bahrain,. Jordan and Libya.

Add on top of this that we charged both Afghanistan and Iraq on the national credit card and don't want to face the cost of another protracted war.

So how did he do? President Obama was as clear as anyone could be about the reasons for the intervention, its success to date and why he was handing off responsibility to NATO. He was also clear that he wants Qaddafi to leave and the reasons why the United States should not make that a reality by direct intervention.

President Obama repeated what he said in his Nobel speech about the international community having to act when governments wage war against their own citizens. He also outlined the limits on our capability to do so. He added a personal note," I refused to allow a massacre." He was referring to Qaddafi's offense aimed at Benghazi, a city of 600,000. Our military and intelligence had reported that Qaddafi intended to obliterate the population in both Bengazi and Tobruk.

In what will be studied later, Obama invoked America's exceptionalism with enough rhetoric to send the Right crazy. But I thought he moved this discussion to a territory incognito. Obama said that America had " a unique power, responsibilities and moral obligations." He said that while other countries could let massacres happen the United States could not look away because of our responsibility to our fellow human beings. He then went on a riff about America's historical identity with people struggling for freedom. What made his argument different was the emphasis he placed on humanitarian intervention to prevent the slaughter of citizens. In fact, in a few of the Republican responses,there was mention that our armed forces should not be involved in humanitarian interventions.

We like to delude ourselves that President Obama said nothing that other Presidents haven't said. But recall that pressed on a humanitarian disaster, George W. Bush said that we would not intervene because it is not in our national interest. Earlier the Clinton Administration had begged off another crisis saying that we lacked allies to do anything about it.

American responses to humanitarian disasters, particularly genocide,have been murky at best. FDR did nothing about the Holocaust. In fact, allied bombing raids were directed away from the camps. It was Senator George McGovern who argued we should have returned to Cambodia because of Pol Pot's Year Zero. Bill Clinton failed miserably on Rwanda to the point that he later went there to apologize. When George H.W. Bush encouraged the Shia in Iraq to revolt and then they did, he did nothing and he already had a No-Fly Zone in place.

I agree with President Obama's reasons for intervening in Libya but, frankly, I don't believe Americans really do once they think about it. The most vocal support for the way he is conducting this intervention is coming from certain elements in the human rights community who feel that the United Nations and the United States have finally got it right when it comes to preventing massacres.

President Obama also made it clear that he sides with those agitating for change in the Middle East and Iran. He points out that if Qaddafi had succeeded, then the autocrats in the region would have learned the correct lesson that they could use massive force to repress their own people and avoid the winds of change. I think this was one of his strongest points.

But he didn't leave us with the neat,nice ending that all Americans want. In fact he was very clear about how unclear the future will be. This is a man who can live with alot of ambiguity and unknown unknowns. He pointed out that troubles do not end and neither does American involvement when Qaddafi goes. Rather the United States and its allies would have to assist the Libyans in forging a new government in the wake of decades where the civil society had been destroyed. This was a point of honesty that had been sorely lacking when he invaded Iraq. Instead, we were treated to years of rhetoric about dead-enders. Obama pointed out that the various uprisings in the Middle East will have different outcomes and we do know what they will be.

For all the critics who say Obama doesn't believe the United States is an "exceptional" country, he used more exceptional rhetoric last night than he did in his State of the Union speech. This will not satisfy his critics, but nothing will. He did not use the "e" word itself but almost every trope associated with it.

Personally, I think that the United States is very actively involved covertly in different ways to topple Qaddafi. You didn't have to read between the lines of the speech to catch this. There are Special Forces from the United States and elsewhere on the ground and other so-called "assets" working the terrain. And, no , this does not mean Obama violated his rule to have no troops on the ground. That's a phrase used for direct and overt ground troops being openly sent to a country and used in a war.

Qaddafi for his part has been burning up the phones to the AU governments. His old colleague the President of Chad fed the international media the line that Al Qaeda stole a cache of surface to air missiles. Qaddafi has maintained for the last ten years that his opposition was Al Qaeda. And so this gets circulated through the European papers and is picked up back here.

The Africa Union passed a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Libya and free elections. For the past ten years, the AU has existed on Libya's contributions. It was no surprise that Qaddafi agreed to these terms unconditionally. But I want to remind everyone that Qaddafi said a few weeks ago that he was observing a ceasefire and towns were still attacked by his army.

Today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Europe to meet with the Libyan opposition and others who are involved in the allied efforts. There is some talk about the allies actually army the opposition. I shudder to think about the blowback possibilities like we saw in Afghanistan.

All in all, President Obama checked off all the things that needed to be said and what needed to be made clear. However, he has opened the door for a larger debate on the use of American military force and the notion that we can and should act multilaterally. I am not so sure anyone will believe the GOP's unilateral mantra in 2012 but people can be convinced of anything.

One last positive note to the speech was President Obama's emphasis on America's power is related to its ability to persuade and influence others to form alliances to address common problems. Throughout his speech, President Obama kept linking "diplomats and soldiers" to convey how American power should be measured in other ways.

This was a welcomed change from the militarism we have heard before. We wait and hope.