But since I don't really trust President Obama's team to do the right thing abroad except when it furthers their political agenda (or when our foreign policy is on auto pilot without presidential level direction), I don't give him a lot of credit. Some credit is due, of course. The Libya War did work out despite my expectations. But to be fair to my analytical abilities, the war changed greatly from how it was both sold--as a simple "no-fly" zone over rebel-held cities, and begun--as bombing Khaddafi's forces without siding with the rebels. Stratfor describes it well:
After seven months of NATO intervention, Gadhafi was killed. That it took so long for this to happen stands out, given that the intervention involved far more than airstrikes, including special operations forces on the ground targeting for airstrikes, training Libyan troops, managing logistics, overseeing communications and both planning and at times organizing and leading the Libyan insurgents in battle.
And it was still a close call. NATO seemed awfully close to throwing up their hands when the western rebels overran Tripoli.
President Obama just hasn't earned full credit, any more than he earned that Nobel Peace Prize, and our enemies know it:
To be sure, as Obama’s fans will tell you, he approves the killing of lots of bad guys, of which Qaddafi is the latest case in point. It’s an impressive list by now, and grows longer virtually every day. And they insist that he’s brought down more tyrants than George W Bush and Dick Cheney ever dreamed of, and is calling for Assad to go. Why is he not getting proper credit? they ask. The answer’s pretty easy: because in the three cases of regime change to date (Tunisia, Egypt and Libya), Obama arrived late to the fight, plainly dithered before making up his mind which side he was on, and never seemed to be “in charge,” without which he really isn’t entitled to ask for a medal. And as for the assassination of terrorists, while it’s a better world without them, it’s not a fundamentally changed world, and Obama promised to change the world. If you’re going to fight the terror network, you’re going to have to target headquarters, training camps, and home bases. He has yet to act effectively against the two surviving charter members of the Axis of Evil, Iran and Syria. They have every reason to believe they can do most anything without fearing anything more than sanctions, headshakes, and tongue clucks.
Yeah, the credit has to be limited by how these achievements were made: leading from behind and leading from before.
But I wouldn't go as far as the last sentence. Libya pretty much came out of nowhere and foes have to worry that President Obama might ignore Congress, find a loop hole in international law, and militarily intervene even when no vital American interests are at stake. It may not be as good as enemies fearing our resolve, but fearing our unpredictability has some value.
The basic point is that Iran is exploiting our reputation for not being willing to go for the kill or do what it takes to help our friends. It is complicating our foreign policy all across the Middle East region. Even getting a win in Syria if we can somehow topple the Assad regime, while it will hurt Iran, will not end the Iranian threat that appears wherever we have problems in the region (and even in Latin America and Africa, Iran spreads its tentacles).
I draw comfort that we continue to treat the symptoms of our problems in the Islamic world. I feared far worse. But if President Obama wants true credit for leadership, he can do what even George W. Bush wouldn't do (to be fair, he'd have been impeached by the loyal opposition if he had tried): cut the Gordian Knot in the Middle East and destroy the mullah regime in Iran.
Be warned, this isn't just necessary to strike back for Iran's past crimes or their current destabilizing efforts, it would forestall future Iranian mischief on a grander scale, as Stratfor also describes:
Syria was close to Iran before the uprising. Iran has been the most supportive of the Syrian regime. If al Assad survives this crisis, his willingness to collaborate with Iran will only intensify. In Lebanon, Hezbollah — a group the Iranians have supported for decades — is a major force. Therefore, if the U.S. withdrawal in Iraq results in substantial Iranian influence in Iraq, and al Assad doesn’t fall, then the balance of power in the region completely shifts. ...
The point here, of course, is that the decision to withdraw from Iraq and the inability to persuade the Iraqi government to let U.S. forces remain has the potential to change the balance of power in the region. Rather than closing the book on Iraq, it simply opens a new chapter in what was always the subtext of Iraq, namely Iranian power. The civil war in Iraq that followed the fall of Saddam Hussein had many dimensions, but its most strategically important one was the duel between the United States and Iran. The Obama administration hopes it can maintain U.S. influence in Iraq without the presence of U.S. troops. Given that U.S. influence with the presence of troops was always constrained, this is a comforting, though doubtful, theory for Washington to consume.
Iran is our enemy. We can pretend that we don't need to fight them, but one day they'll do enough harm to us to remove that comforting illusion that we can afford to have them as an enemy, continually probing our defenses and seeking to harm us. President Obama is learning the hard lesson that our war with Islamo-fascists (both Sunni and Shia varieties) is not the fault of George W. Bush. It's them--not us.
My hope is that liberals will give the president leeway to fight Iran and the jihadis in ways that they never would for a Republican. Liberal support for President Obama's war in Libya without Congressional authorization and their refusal to condemn drone strikes in Pakistan and escalation in Afghanistan shows that they are fully capable of switching gears rapidly depending on who is leading the war. And far more conservatives will support our president in return, rather than turn on a president for doing what they'd defend Bush for doing. I remember one liberal writer making that argument explicitly as a reason to vote for Kerry in 2004. I thought it was a disgustingly partisan argument. But I never thought it was wrong.
