Friday, March 29, 2024
Friday, March 29, 2024
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Obama’s Libyan War And Israel

 

Finally—after weeks of indecisive hesitation, and with Col. Khaddafi’s forces about to conquer Benghazi, the Libyan rebels’ last strong-hold—les jeux sont faits, the game, as the French say, is up. Under French and British pressure, American President Barack Obama (supposedly sandbagged by three female Cabinet advisers, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, UN Ambassador Susan Rice, and National Security Council member Samantha Powers) finally agreed, at the last minute, to support a Libyan intervention. 
 
In a hurried press conference, before ostentatiously leaving in mid-crisis for Brazil (which had just abstained on intervention in the Security Council) Obama—who weeks earlier had dramati- cally said Khaddafi “had to go”—informed the world that Amer- ica would be part of a UN coalition imposing a “no fly” zone on Libya. 
 
But, as he quickly added, the allies, not the U.S., would lead, there would never be American “boots” on the ground, and the venture, Obama proudly added, even had the solid support of the Arab League (which soon turned wobbly when the bombs began to fall). There was now, however, no reference to the Libyan colonel’s departure. 
 
Yet despite the transparent, and telling, cloaking of the move in internationalist bafflegab, America’s key military role (begun on the very day marking the beginning of the Iraq war’s ninth year), soon became clear. So too did the confusion issuing from the President’s weak leadership and incoherent policy—what was initially touted as only a “no fly” zone to protect “civilians” morphed, on day one, into a direct assault on Khaddafi’s military forces, including a (failed) attempt to assassinate him by bomb- ing his presidential palace in Tripoli.
 
Khaddafi, of course, is far from defeated. His anti-colonial (and anti-“Christian/infidel” hype) has evidently already divided the Arab support Obama initially trumpeted. He can also hope for internal divisions among the weak Western allies (already blaming Sarkozy and the French for being too self-seekingly aggressive, and arguing about who or what will head the mission should the U.S. make good on Obama’s threat to cease its current leadership). The Colonel may be counting, too, on Obama’s los- ing his nerve under public and Congressional criticism (already being expressed by a united Republican front and an already neg- ative Democratic-left “base”). 
 
The Libyan intervention may well prove a partial, if not unmitigated, disaster. Obama has repeatedly framed it as lasting days, not months; but it may well (like Iraq and Afghanistan) turn into years. Libya may be functionally partitioned, largely along tribal lines, with Khaddafi king of Tripoli and points west, while the weak rebels (with open-ended Western support) domi- nate the east. 
 
The “rebels” themselves, an amorphous, heterogeneous group with no clear leadership, may themselves splinter; and even if Obama does succeed in killing Khaddafi (his and Hillary Clin- ton’s euphemism is “make him go away”), his sons may well continue on. Indeed, a cornered Khaddafi could, as he has threat- ened, blow up his oil fields (which supply Italy, France and Ger- many), or launch a series of terrorist strikes against Europe and the U.S. (we should never forget that Libya provided the bulk of the foreign Sunni terrorists in Iraq, and that Khaddafi’s repeated invocation of his opposition to al-Qaeda is not empty rhetoric). 
 
So, what does “Obama’s war” have to do with Israel? First, Obama’s initial hesitations about confronting Khaddafi, a real Arab murderer and thug, throw light on the political values revealed by his consistently hostile stance towards democratic Israel on the Palestinian issue. Secondly, in regard to his  pro forma verbal assurances about defending Israel, we should recall his rapid jettisoning of Hosni Mubarak, America’s firmest, and oldest, Middle East Arab ally, at the beginning of the Egyptian “revolution”, and his dangerous vacillation in regard to another old ally still facing “protesters”, the king of strategically-crucial Bahrain.
 
The Egyptian “revolution” is now safely in the hands of the military, which evicted the “protesters” from Tahrir Square, and is controlling a constitution-making process marked by an ever stronger Moslem Brotherhood (as witnessed in the recent constitutional amendments vote). The Saudis, well-aware of their own security interests and explicitly rejecting Obama’s imprecations, have invaded Bahrain and put down the revolutionary pro-Iranian Shi’ite “protesters” there. (Another American ally, the antial Qaeda ruler of Yemen, President Saleh, also facing growing opposition, is being allowed to twist slowly in the revolutionary wind by an indecisive Obama. 
 
And now—mirabile dictu!—sudden popular protests have broken out even in Syria, only to be bloodily suppressed, and this despite the presence of the recently-returned American ambassador, put there without Congressional approval by Obama notwithstanding Assad’s literally murderous anti-U.S. role in Iraq and Lebanon. 
 
In short, Barack Obama and his Administration are a foreign policy disaster. Marked by a leftist-anti-“colonialist” mentality (read the Cairo Speech), a weakness for “re-setting” relations with dictatorships (Russia, China, Iran, Syria), and facing a severe domestic social and economic crisis, Obama’s neo-isolationist tendency is, especially in the Middle East, increasingly evident. 
 
His brief two years in office have seen the reversal of long standing American Middle East and Persian Gulf policy, and the collapse, actual or imminent, of traditional American allies. And as the brief hope of a truly democratic “Arab Revolution” dims, what looms ominously in its stead is prolonged chaos and reinforcement of Islamist movements (from the Moslem Brothers in Egypt and Gaza to Al Qaeda in Yemen and, possibly Libya), and growing Iranian Shiite influence (in Bahrain, and with Hezbollah in Lebanon.) 
 
Under such dangerous and unstable circumstances, Israel must look to its own basic security. The Obama Administration’s illusory, and dangerous, “peace process” pressures (which may well increase precisely as Obama is defeated elsewhere) must be resolutely resisted. Given this, we here in North America, the last redoubt of public support for the Jewish state, must remain united and committed to ensuring continuing, strong public and governmental backing… 
 
(Prof. Krantz is Director of the Canadian Institute
for Jewish Research, and Editor of the Isranet Daily Briefing)

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