In the Democratic primary campaign of 2008, candidate Barack Obama scored points because he, unlike many Democrats, had opposed the Iraq War from the start. Although he was a state senator at the time of the 2002 congressional vote authorizing military action, Obama had delivered a speech to an anti-war rally in Chicago.
He said, “I don’t oppose all wars. . . . What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.”
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Regarding the justifications for war with Iraq, state senator Obama was unpersuaded: “ I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied U.N. resolutions, thwarted U.N. inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. . . . But . . . he poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors.”
As American forces join the war against Moammar Qaddafi, the nation is entitled to an explanation. How is the case for war against Qaddafi smarter (remember, Obama is only against “dumb” wars) or less “ideological” or more prudent than that for war against Saddam Hussein?
Certainly with an army of only 50,000, Qaddafi represents far less of a threat to his neighbors or to us than did Saddam, who commanded an army estimated at 350,000. As for humanitarian concerns, what Qaddafi is doing to the rebels in Libya is exactly what Saddam did to his domestic enemies, but on a reduced scale. As Obama himself said, Saddam was “a ruthless man . . . who butchers his own people to secure his power.” Yet that didn’t justify a war, state senator Obama told us.
Senator Obama did not believe that Saddam posed a danger to the United States or to his neighbors — though he had attacked or invaded three of his neighbors: Iran, Kuwait, and Israel. Yet Qaddafi has hardly ranged beyond his own borders.
While Obama (like the rest of the world) was convinced that Saddam had “developed chemical and biological weapons” — and though he knew that Saddam had actually attacked his own people from the air with chemical weapons — he didn’t think that his possession of those weapons warranted war. In Qaddafi’s case, there is no threat of WMDs, as the dictator flamboyantly relinquished his WMD program after seeing Saddam’s fate.
How are Obama’s motives regarding military action against Moammar Qaddafi less “cynical” than those he was so contemptuous of in Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle? What “ideological agenda” was the Bush administration “shoving down our throats” that Obama is not himself duplicating? Is he opposed to the Freedom Agenda? What, exactly, was so obnoxious about the Bush program?
How has Obama concluded that a war against another Middle East villain is now justified and not “dumb” or “rash”? And on what principle can President Obama now decline to intervene on behalf of other freedom fighters around the globe?
We don’t know, because unlike George Bush, who took his case for war to the American people through a vote in the U.S. Congress (with 110 Democrats voting in favor), President Obama has unilaterally put our forces into harm’s way based solely on his power as commander-in-chief. (Code Pink, call your office!) If he is relying upon the vote in the United Nations as his mandate for military action, he is establishing a new principle of diminished U.S. sovereignty. American forces can now be ordered into action by the president and the U.N. but without the U.S. Congress?
On most of the foreign- and security-policy issues he preened himself about — the folly of deposing despots, closing the prison at Guantanamo, using military tribunals to try terrorists, and withdrawing from Iraq — President Obama has reversed himself.
He has performed these reversals without explanation and without apology for his shrill condemnation of his predecessor. He condemned Bush’s “ideology” but his own foreign policy seems to have amounted to marketing the image of himself as the first African-American president and the first Muslim-sympathetic president. Image making is easier than policymaking — and when it came time for decisions, President Obama dissolved into incoherence.
Of course he is incoherent. He has no idea what he is doing and I am guessing they polled the idea of participating and decided it is in our best interests. However, on the issue of going to Congress I have a different view. I think it was a mistake for Bush to have shared his Commander in Chief responsibility with Congress, even if it made political sense. That Obama has acted unilaterally only strengthens the executive branch and that is a good thing.
It seems Obama's promises of transparency which have yet to materialize in the domestic scene have eluded him again. This time with his incoherent foreign policy and that is telling.
@Earl,
It was not a 'mistake' for Mr. Bush to go to Congress re: the war, nor was it political. It is PART of the separation of powers and checks and balances of the US Constitution. The President may wage war at the direction of Congress but only Congress has the power to declare war.
Small correction Qaddafi did range beyond Libya's borders for some time. He spent 10 years trying to annex Chad or at least part of it, tried to bring down Egypt's govt sparking a short border war, sent foces to prop up Islamic or pan-African causes, tried to seize a chunk of the Mediterranean, and of course was not shy of using terrorism.
True most of that was 20 years or more ago but then Saddam's foreign adventures were over a decade before 2003 and Saddam's did effect the world more.
Obama's comments in Chicago should have given a clue.
Not to be too cynical, but most wars are launched by civilian leaders who will not personally fight, to impose some ideological vision. Sometimes the ideology is a systematic and named one like communism, sometimes more vague and inchoate like liberty or independence, or national unity.
Most American wars could be so described. The question is, is the ideological aim valid and worthy of the risks and sacrifices to be endured?
Similarly, several of the items in his indictment of Saddam were by themselves sufficient to warrant war as a matter of strategic analysis, sufficient to justify war under international law in accordance with UN resolutions and ceasefire terms of 1991, and sufficient to justify war for the US if the US Administration deemed a US interest to be at stake in waging it, and could persuade Congress to agree.
That doesn't mean there was no room to oppose the Iraq war. Perfectly reasonable arguments existed. But the debate should have only been about the US interest.
Obama's failure to see any of this then or now suggests he was never up to it and still is not.
Then again, I tend to apply a moral philosophy to this that many find alien.
I take the view that to use force, risk and sacrifice lives, especially's one's own countrymen's lives but also to kill foreigners, when one does not oneself have an interest, is immoral. TO intervene to impose justice and for no other reason is an illegitimate use of force. To do so to enforce "international community" standards of justice is doubly immoral, since the "international community" has no standing to define these. There may come a day when a Chinese and Asian run international community deems Western modes of governance contrary to the economic order of the world, and the political stability necessary for their idea of human flourishing. Will the international community still be the arbiter of justice then?
Whereas, interfering and using force where one's own country has a stake might be moral. I am open to the use of just war thinking here, but one must have a dog in the fight as a precondition.
By that standard, inevitably, intervening in Iraq to democratize them was illegitimate. Intervening to stabilize the security system of the region, had it worked, might have been legitimate. Intervening to get oil, had that worked, would actually have been the most legitimate reason.
Using force to secure the resources on which one's society depends for its life and the lives of its people is far more moral than any other reason to send men to kill or die.
I have begun to think Obama's actions are not necessarily incoherent; he really doesn't view the US as anything special, and appears to be determined to ensure that US sovereignty is subordinated to the UN and other "world" organizations. He also really doesn't care about the constitutional separation of powers - those were evidently only talking points against Bush to get him elected.
I hate our troops being placed in harm's way under these circumstances.
Uh, Mona, in your next screed, could you please explain how this Libya venture is at all comparable to W's invasion of Iraq with something like 150,000 troops? In your column, each is simply a "war."
I walked across the street this morning. The Bataan death march it wasn't. But to you, I guess, they would both be the same.
I have to agree with PDevelin in his answer to Earl: War making authority rests with Congress, and, except for emergencies, the President needs to seek out Congressional approval before embarking on military adventures.
Random Observer is spot-on and provides a good answer to Ostap.
Annieoakley53 - Not only is he incoherent, he's incompetent and possibly malevolent.
Great column, Mona. I continue to be depressed whenever our Presidents (most of the last ten of them) have gone to war without a declaration by Congress. Without a national emergency, this is nonsense, and the House should take note. I'm not a pacifist (30 years Navy) and have always supported the Government when our military folks are being thrust into danger. But Congress needed to declare this one, since there is absolutely no national clear or present danger, and no strategy whatever. It's gonna' be real tough for the President to trim the defense budget to appease his left wing! P.S. Your first blogger suggests that this is not a war, just like his crossing the street is not the Bataan Death March. Let me tell him that it will be war for the family of the first American who gets killed or captured there. I'll bet there were a few minutes last night when the pilot and crewman of the F-16 who ejected over the desert thought a bit about war!
@Earl, what Obama has done is not by any measure a good thing.
Bush taking the case for war in Afghanistan and Iraq was not a sign of weakness in the executive branch, it was completely consistent and compliant with the Constitution and the War Powers Act. Even the executive must obey the fundamental law of our nation and its statutes.
Obama has treated our foreign policy as his personal ideological playground, keeping Congress on the fringes even when the Democrats controlled the Congress. This does not strengthen the executive branch; it provides a picture of a President who does not respect the limitations on the office and this ultimately tends to lead to weakening of the executive branch.
In any event, strengthening the executive branch at the expense of the legislative is not something that we need support. Our Constitution provides a system of "checks and balances"; it ill behooves any conservative to want to see that system undermined.
His goal was to stop discussions on Obamacare on the 1 year anniversary, to stop the budget debates, to put a show on TV that would dominate 24/7 and domestic reality just vanishes off of everyone's radar in an instant.
He already has you researching a meaningless topic, war in Libya. We need you to stay focused on our domestic problems, which are many.
All liberal media are playing along with the "Confusion", gladly wrapping the story about Libya, while we sink deeper in debt, face a housing double dip, and recession double dip. Perhaps those issues deserve attention while Obama carries out his distraction.
It might be incoherent, or it could be maddeningly intentional. Perhaps Obama is testing the waters by ignoring the Constitution when it suits him -- remember Holder's selective enforcement of civil right's crimes?? Start small...and then get bolder and emboldened as the people and the Congress give the ultimate American Idol popularity contest winner a pass.
If we assume that his pledge to uphold and defend the Constitution on his inauguration day meant anything to him, then we sadly are fooling ourselves. And we ignore his actions and intentions at our own peril.
Great column, Mona. Thanks. Certainly the humanitarian disaster foreshadowed by Qaddafi's threats would have been far less than those of Saddam Hussein. Many of us are still wondering about the reasoning behind this expedition, but we wonder not about the partisanship exposed by hypocrisy.
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