Once again, the White House has fluffed its lines on the Arab revolution. With Gaddafi’s helicopter gunships strafing his own people, with corpses piling up on the streets of Tripoli, President Barack Obama has remained silent.
Even if the revolt fails, is it so bad to have a reputation for siding with people who want to overthrow a tyrant?
Yes, we flipped Khaddafi from his WMD projects and terror support (apparently), but he is still a thug. We accepted his flip without demanding more since we had more than enough to do elsewhere, but don't be confused that he was our best buddy. In the short run, we'd not try to unseat him; but in the long run, we ow him nothing for a decision out of fear to become less threatening to us.
We're several months past the 3:00 a.m. phone call stage. By now, the White House should have more than a vague idea of how to respond to new phone calls, regardless of when they come.
UPDATE: Or we could be waiting for evacutation operations to get as many of our citizens out (from an OSAC email update):
U.S. Embassy Tripoli released the following Warden Message on February 23, 2011:
As of 10:49 a.m. a U.S. government chartered ferry is preparing to dock at the As-shahab Port in central Tripoli, located on the sea road across from the Radisson Blu Mahari Hotel. The ferry will depart for Valletta, Malta, no later than 3:00 p.m.
Processing of U.S. citizens has begun and seats are available on the ferry.
This could explain some of the restraint by the administration to this point. Even though a history of being harsher to friends than to our enemies [UPDATE: link added] is the most obvious explanation, I'll withhold final judgment at this point.
