NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who after a 2008 presidential debate hailed Barack Obama’s foreign policy knowledge (“boy, he did show a command of foreign policy in terms of the nuts and bolts of it”), on Sunday’s Meet the Press trumpeted now-President Obama’s Libya action: “This was pretty remarkable – bringing this whole coalition together and getting the Arab League” to back military action. Mitchell also proclaimed Ambassador Susan Rice “did a remarkable job at the UN” where she delivered “some very adept diplomacy.”She reverses cause and effect, acting subject and acted-upon object -- Obama did not put this coalition together. The British and French did, and then Obama's Women had to nag him into joining an already-created coalition.
And Obama did not get the Arab League on board -- they were calling for a no-fly zone ten days ago.
1 comment:
thought this comment at FR was interesting . . .
"Make no mistake about this. The libya air war is a direct attack on what was shaping up to be yet another Chinese client state in oil country. Gaddafi was making the same mistake Saddam made pre 2003: preparing to give control of large in-ground oil reserves to the Chinese. Western oil contracts were already up for review and cancellation. The PRC was aggressively adding "technicians," pipelines, drilling rigs and oil concessions there. Not to mention Chinese-supported Iranian outposts along the southern Libyan board funneling arms to guerrilla fighters seeking to overthrow Chad and Niger, where the Chinese have been trying to gain footholds.
This attack is a real setback for the Chinese, who have had sand kicked in their face once again without being able to do much about it. I suspect the only reason we were slow to institute the no-fly zone is that the Chinese had positioned a missile frigate in the line of fire, ostensibly to help evacuate the hundreds of Chinese nationals in Libya.
The question I have is: what carrot or stick was sued to get the Russians and Chinese to withhold use of their UN veto power so that the attack could proceed. Interestingly, China last week was allowed to buy in to a refining, petchem project in Saudi. Maybe that was the sop they have been offered for likely losing out on building massive 600kbd refinery in Egypt (for peanuts) now that Mubarak is on his way out.
Look where else we are rolling up two-bit tyrannies: Yemen and Syria, also heavily aligned with the Chinese through arms deals, if not much outright oil. Posters here who chafe at this military action as simply one of Obama's follies have no conception of the geopolitical stakes involved, the thorough-going involvement of the national security apparatus and the essential need to do something effective before you have Chinese boots on the ground. That is what drove Bush's 2003 Iraq invasion (since UN sanctions would have been lifted at the end of that year, allowing the Chinese to garrison the Al Adab and Halfaya fields there). Without a doubt, President Obama has been a bystander in this matter. Frankly, it is way above his pay grade.
It is interesting that in 2009, Gaddafi intervened to stop the Chinese (CNPC) from buying Canadian independent Verenex, which had found several large oil fields in Western Libya near Tunisia in the Ghadames Basin. I suspect he was worried that allowing that deal to go through might have brought Washington down on his neck then. Libyan state ownership of Verenex, though, might be merely a way of laundering that oil into the hands of the Chinese, who now count Libya as one of their largest crude suppliers, surpassing Angola (which has cooled to Chinese inroads). by Tenega"
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