Obama, Libya and Jedi Mind Tricks

As a disappointed leftist, I am no fan of President Obama. I believe that his administration is captured by Wall Street interests, that he's a sucker for bipartisanship even at the cost of the progressive policy agenda, and that he's abandoned his promise to dismantle the Bush-era US security state. I read his delay on making a decision concerning Libya as another manifestation of his weaknesses - status quo bias, protracted decision making, and fear of upsetting Republicans. There was no way I saw for this President to come through with the no-fly zone that his allies, and even the Arab League, were urging. I fully expected this to be death of the Libyan opposition - and I wasn't the only one.

And then the US engineers the passage of a UN resolution mandating not just a "no-fly zone" over Libya, but "all necessary measures" to protect civilians from pro-Qaddafi forces, diplomatic language for discretionary airstrikes. It may that this is too little, too late, but airstrikes, especially in clear weather in open desert terrain, can be devastatingly effective against military forces, as the regular Iraqi army learned in both Gulf Wars. And given that Qadaffi's support in Libya is very thin and his ranks packed with opportunistic mercenaries, it's unlikely that he can absorb significant losses without a complete collapse in his authority. The authorization is a game changer, and Qaddafi knows it. This intervention is likely to tip the balance decisively to the opposition, and by waiting until the 11th hour and then over-delivering (airstrikes against Qaddafi instead of a mere no-fly zone) Obama has demonstrated that the US, despite the recent blows to its international prestige, is still a crucial power and can claim credit for an eventual opposition victory.