There is cautious jubilation in the streets of Tripoli and Washington DC. The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is no more.
Although Muammar Gaddafi has yet to be apprehended, the end of his 40-year reign in Libya is over. We have no idea what kind of governance the rebel coalition will cobble together in the coming weeks and months and possibly years, but Liberal Hawks and the mainstream press are already having their own Mission Accomplished moment by declaring that the joint US-NATO operation, initially sold as a humanitarian mission but eventually obvious as nothing more than a regime change effort, was a resounding success. Although Elliott Abrams slammed the strategy of “leading from behind,” as an Obama staffer termed it, other neoconservatives, for example, Paul Bremer, applauded the President’s approach in Libya. Commentators argued that Obama’s strategy was finally a departure from the “Weinberger Doctrine” and that the “strategy represents a step away from […] the notion that the United States must dominate any operation where its military is involved.” Furthermore, said the President, we did it all without a single boot on the ground.
Well, not exactly. Neither the claims of a “bootless” war or the “success” of a some new strategy are true. It’s just been one more American war.
Early on it was well-known there were mercenaries on the ground in Libya. Conservatives took the president to task for lying about units on the ground “Except for Those Guys,” referring to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit and their MV-22 Ospreys. It was also known that American special forces were sent to train rebels on the use of arms dropped into Libya, that the CIA and other forces were dropped in, and the US and other NATO nations all ran these operations while lying to their own citizens. The Cato Institute mocked the president’s use of “Sneakers on the Ground.”
Now after this hearty meal of lies we are being treated to dessert.
The United States and NATO now state they have no plans to stay in Libya. But even (maybe especially!) the servicemen who read “Stars and Stripes” are skeptical that the United States will stay out of Libya. After all, old habits die hard.
Richard Haass, president of the Council of Foreign Relations, wants to set the matter straight right away and argues that “Libya Now Needs Boots on the Ground.” And given the fact that we already have lots of footprints all over Libya, this is and indeed will be the reality. Libyans will soon discover that the US will be paying a lot of attention to their new coalition government, especially if Islamists are included. Already the American right wing is wetting their pants about the prospect, fearing that Obama has climbed into bed with al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, but Islamism is also a preoccupation of the Foreign Policy establishment.
So, rather than leading from behind, Obama’s Libyan adventure has been a case of leading from behind a curtain. If skeptics are right, the formation of a Libyan government and the adoption of a constitution will be every bit as slow as in Iraq. And why? Not just because of tribal tensions or rusty experience with democracy, but because the US will be there with its boots on the ground, meddling in the selection of legislators and ministers, pressuring the nascent government on oil and assets, trade agreements, military alliances, and serving as the salesman for American military hardware.
Now that’s leading from behind!
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