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Tuesday, March 15, 2011 © Copyright 2010, The Ultrapolis Project – May be used freely with
proper attribution. All other rights
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Obama’s
Vacillation – Dictator’s Salvation
Leadership
Vacuum Left by America Will Doom Libyans
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has gotten the memo; there will
be no American led effort on behalf of the Libyan people (or anyone, for that
matter). While the cases of Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia, and Yemen may have
posed some serious dilemmas for any American administration, the dithering over
the clear-cut case of Libya is an unambiguous signal of the Obama
administration’s renunciation of any special world leadership role for the
United States. Fitting, since Barak Obama is the first American president
to NOT be identified as the world’s most powerful man in Forbe’s
annual survey – that honor went to the president of China (while the honor may
be premature given America’s still vastly greater power, it speaks volumes of
how people see trends, and how they see current U.S. leadership
projection).
Early morally energetic talk by Secretary of State Clinton has now
been replaced by a corporate-speak clarification that ANY decisions and
initiatives “must” come from the international community. As noted
recently on PBS’s News Hour program, Lt. Gen David Deptula
(Ret.), there must be meetings, consultations, “end-state” determinations, and
all sorts of analysis that must be done with the African Union, NATO, the
United Nations, our Arab (dictatorships) allies, the European Union, ad nauseum. And, as his fellow invited commentator
Libyan civil rights activist Omar Tubir pointed out,
“what I am hearing is ‘do nothing.’” Yes, Mr. Tubir,
you have correctly identified the plan.
This plan has been tried before, always with the same abject
‘success.’ Pity. Rarely does the United States get such an opportunity to stand on the side
of its principles, with such limited downsides, and such huge potential
upsides. If the U.S. will not impose a no-fly zone over a strategically
important, tottering, friendless (even in the Arab world) anti-American
dictatorship, with the people, even in other Arab countries, clamoring for
American support, it won’t anywhere. This sign of petrification of
American power has energized Ghadafi’s forces and
other dictators across the region (Bahrain, Yemen). The answer for
staying in power: Don’t be a Mubarak, do whatever you have to do.
Is a reversal possible? Unlikely, but President Bill Clinton
was convinced to reverse policy in 1995 in Bosnia by his Vice President Al
Gore, after 250,000 dead, and years of endless discussions and no action from
the international leadership. Without waiting for U.N. authorization,
American military forces assisted the Croatians and Bosnians, and quickly ended
the Slobodan Milosevic’s murderous rampage. Predictions from the pacifist
far left and isolationist far right of disaster and thousands of American
casualties proved completely wrong. There are now several major avenues
in Bosnia and Kosovo named after Bill Clinton.
Special
Note to Readers from Editor
The
newsletter has temporarily ceased, but it will be back. We are still
currently in the process of finishing the new format for easier maintenance on
the website. The new format will have a monthly newsletter with a short
feature article, with occasional updates, as needed, added to that existing
news letter page. This will allow deeper discussion on some subjects that
cannot be reliably squeezed out in one week, but allow for timely
forecasts. Due to recent important historic developments, we have resumed
briefs even if we don’t have the monthly up yet.
