Israel Matzav

The White House's surreal Libya policy

With Libyans being murdered by the hour, the Obama administration is head faking right and left and cannot decide what to do. That being said, it seems very unlikely that they will do the one thing that could help the situation: Take military action. This is from Thursday's White House press briefing.

Q Can you talk about the Americans that are in this situation with the ferry that’s not able to leave Tripoli? Are there contingency plans to get them out?

MR. CARNEY: The State Department, the government is working very hard to evacuate the Americans from Libya. The details of those operations are available at the State Department, but we are doing everything we can to safely evacuate them from Libya.

Let's stop here for a second. China got its nationals out. Turkey got its nationals out. But the US needs Gadhafi's permission to sail (no, it's not just the weather).

About 600 Americans were stranded aboard a ferry at Tripoli's harbor, reportedly prevented from sailing by approaching bad weather. U.S. government requests to land aircraft to pick up citizens trying to flee the violence have been denied, State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley told reporters in Washington.

Other foreign governments have managed to evacuate large groups of their nationals by ship from Tripoli, including 4,500 Chinese workers whisked to safety on the Greek island of Crete. Turkey also has managed to send in ships to repatriate the first few hundred of an estimated 3,000 Turkish workers who have converged on the port.

The failure of the U.S. evacuation voyage to get under way spurred speculation in European media that embattled Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi was blocking the ferry's departure to create a human shield against any forceful action by the United States or its allies against the regime.

News agencies reported chaotic scenes at the international airport in Tripoli, with upwards of 10,000 people clamoring to board the few planes able to land. Alitalia suspended flights Thursday, citing security concerns. British Petroleum chartered flights to evacuate its foreign workers to London's Gatwick Airport, and Spanish oil giant Repsol also sent planes to bring home employees.

Military aircraft from Greece arrived to Tripoli Thursday to collect European Union citizens trying to leave the country, the Athens government reported.

Where are the US Marines? On vacation? Why is that ferry in the harbor as a sitting duck to protect Gadhafi? BP can get its employees out but the US Embassy can't?

Let's go back to the White House press briefing. It gets worse.

Q And with that evacuation still not having happened, how does that complicate the U.S. response to the situation?

MR. CARNEY: Well, as I think you heard the President say yesterday very clearly what our -- what his position is towards the situation, towards the actions of the Libyan government, very clear condemnation of the violence against the protesters there, violence against Libyan citizens, he also is obviously very concerned about the safety of Americans, and that is a priority. That’s all I can say on that.

Q Any movement on sanctions, no-fly zone?

MR. CARNEY: Obviously sanctions are something we’re looking at. I don’t want to get into specifics. We’re working very closely with the international community, and we’re hoping and believe that the international community will speak with one voice, as I think is often the case. When the international community comes together and speaks with one voice it has a powerful impact in terms of persuading a government like Libya’s to do the right thing, to stop the kind of violence it’s been perpetrating on its own people.

So we’re examining a lot of options -- sanctions are one of them, but I don’t want to specify that one is going to happen and one’s not going to happen. But we’re working with our partners on that. [Note how he doesn't respond about the no-fly zone. Someone will force him back to that point later. CiJ]

Q Will sanctions be on the agenda when the President speaks to Cameron and Sarkozy today?

MR. CARNEY: Well, they will be discussing Libya. And I think that they will be discussing different options that we can take -- the United States, the United Kingdom, France, other countries, international partners -- to affect the behavior of the Libyan government. So I’m sure, broadly speaking, our options will be discussed.

Yes, go ahead.

Q What kind of military options are being considered?

MR. CARNEY: I think what we’ve said is that there are no options we’re taking off the table. But what we’re focused on are the options that we can take to affect the situation in the nearer term. And we would like to see the kind of concerted, broad-based international action that can compel the Libyan government to cease and desist from the kind of actions it’s taking against its own people.

...

Q The French Defense Minister has talked openly about imposing a no-fly zone more openly than the U.S. has talked about it. Can you explain why?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I don’t want to explain what other leaders in other countries have said or other senior officials from other countries. What we have said is that we’re not going to specify which options are on or off the table. We are discussing a full range of options with our partners at the U.N. and elsewhere. And we expect to take action in the near term with the international community to, we believe, hopefully compel the Libyan government to stop killing its own people.

You got that? People are dying by the hour, American citizens lives are in danger and they're 'considering' sanctions. I'm sure Gadhafi is quaking in his boots at the prospect. They're apparently not even considering - let alone implementing - a no-fly zone. They're talking about this like they have a year or so to decide what to do (and in fact, later in the briefing, Carney ducks all the questions about a timetable, saying they don't have one). But in a year or so, if nothing changes, there are going to be an awful lot of dead people in North Africa.

I want to go back for a minute to part of what I skipped. This is Carney again.

And I would simply note that one consistent theme I think you’ve seen in the way that we have responded to these developments, these events in the Middle East, in the region, has been to make it clear that it’s also not about the United States. It’s not about the United States dictating outcomes, picking leaders, telling countries who can run, who can be their leader and who can’t be -- because what we have seen are legitimate, organic, grassroots risings by the peoples of these countries demanding more freedom and greater opportunity in their lives. And again, it’s not about individual leaders and it’s about the peoples in these countries.

Good grief. There's a difference between dictating results and doing everything you can to influence them. There's a difference between sitting on the sidelines and letting the Muslim Brotherhood take over Egypt - on the one hand - and doing everything you can to foster a liberal, pro-democracy, pro-Western movement that has a shot in hell of winning an election.

Of course, if WE were having an election now, I have no doubt that Obama would ask his friend Jeremy Ben Ami to use his Israeli PR agency to do all they can for Tzipi Livni. Who knows: Maybe he'd pull a Bill Clinton and send David Axelrod over here to help Livni.

But he won't do that in Egypt or Tunisia or Libya or anyplace else. In those countries, we have to accept the Muslim Brotherhood being in charge.

I don't even have to ask what could go wrong. This is surreal.

Labels: Barack Obama, Egyptian regime change, Libyan regime change, Muammar Gaddafi, Muslim Brotherhood, Tunisia

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:54 AM