Cops And Bloggers

For two years Jeffrey Goldberg has been warning readers about the likelihood of Israel attacking Iran. Writing during a Middle East visit last week, Goldberg speculated that Benyamin Netanyahu may have been bluffing the whole time in order to get the U.S. to toughen its position. Andrew Sullivan, perhaps forgetting Winston Churchill's maneuvers before the U.S. entry into World War II, is shocked, just shocked that Israel would leverage and manipulate its generous ally. For his part, Goldberg admires the Washington-Jerusalem two-step:

[Obama and Netanyahu] they have accomplished something extraordinary together over the past two years. The sanctions Obama has placed on Iran are some of the toughest ever placed on any country. Even some hardliners now believe that they just might force a change in Iran’s nuclear calculus. And how has Obama convinced the world that these sanctions are necessary? By pointing to Netanyahu and saying, “If you don’t cooperate with me on sanctions, this guy is going to blow up the Middle East.”

Obama’s good-cop routine is then aided immeasurably by the world’s willingness to believe that Netanyahu is the bad cop.

No one fully understands the dynamic between Obama and Netanyahu, apart from the men themselves. And no one, maybe not even their closest advisers, knows what they said to each other when they met alone March 5 in the White House. I recognize the suggestion that the two men are deliberately tag-teaming Iran is a bit much to swallow, and I recognize, too, that believing Netanyahu never intends to attack Iran by himself is dangerous.

When word got around the Episconixonian newsroom about Goldberg's use of that particular law enforcement metaphor, our voices were raised as one proclaiming "Holy Guacamole!" Back on Feb. 22, I wrote:

Whether taking the threat of an Israeli or U.S. attack seriously would lead to war or the negotiating table remains an open question. It occurs to me that President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, without having set out to do so, have fallen into a good cop, bad cop dynamic that is making the threat of an Israeli attack seem more imminent than it perhaps is -- which, again, may help draw Teheran into a meaningful conversation about how to avoid war, which would be by not developing a nuclear weapon. George W. Bush pulled off something similar with Libya.

Tongue Tied Tucker

Yesterday Tucker Carlson said Iran was evil "and deserves to be annihilated." You and I don't take overpaid TV blowhards too seriously (one hopes), but there's considerable fear that Iran might do so. Whether taking the threat of an Israeli or U.S. attack seriously would lead to war or the negotiating table remains an open question. It occurs to me that President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, without having set out to do so, have fallen into a good cop, bad cop dynamic that is making the threat of an Israeli attack seem more imminent than it perhaps is -- which, again, may help draw Teheran into a meaningful conversation about how to avoid war, which would be by not developing a nuclear weapon. George W. Bush pulled off something similar with Libya.

In any event, Carlson apologized for being "tongue tied" and then enunciated a position that makes sense:

I'm actually on the opposite side on the Iran question from many people I otherwise agree with. I think attacking could be a disaster for the U.S. and am worried that Obama will do it, for fear of seeming weak before an election. Of course the Iranian government is awful and deserves to be crushed. But I'm not persuaded we or Israel could do it in a way that doesn't cause even greater problems. That's the main lesson of Iraq it seems to me.

Why Libya But Not Syria?

In Syria, we'd probably lose.

The Oilist

Discussing foreign policy at a tea party rally in Florida, Donald Trump leapfrogs the realists, neorealists, neoconservatives, isolationists, nation builders, and liberal idealists:

He said he’d only be interested in current U.S. military actions in Iraq or Libya if the U.S. got the oil from those nations.

You Say NATO? Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

Steven Metz says the great anti-Soviet coalition might be kaput, at least if the Libya war is judged a failure. It seems that President Obama put too much faith in NATO, and NATO has too many expectations of the U.S.:

[F]or the third time since the end of the cold war, NATO has accepted a major mission and then demonstrated that it does not have the unity of purpose or the military capability to perform it. At least, not without the United States dominating. Meanwhile, the United States has not fully grappled with the idea that NATO may have outlived its usefulness: Its costs may outweigh the contribution it makes to American security, and the notion that the U.S. needs to remain heavily involved in European security seems less and less evident.

BTO Watch

Bachmann vs. Obama's Libya war in 2011: "Foolish." Obama vs. Bush's Iraq war in 2002: "Dumb and rash."

The Fallacy Of The Simple War

With Libya becoming a military and diplomatic muddle, the risks proliferate for our inexperienced president:

Mr. Obama’s decision to join the military intervention in Libya may well be judged a failure if the initial result is a muddle or a partition of the country, an outcome that his own secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, declared less than a month ago would be a “a real formula for insecurity.” If the country’s civil war drags on, Mr. Obama will almost certainly have to answer a rising chorus of critics that he entered the battle too late, began to exit too early, and overestimated a very inexperienced, disorganized rebel movement.

Pragmatically Oblique

Henry Kissinger and James A. Baker adopt a policy of pragmatic skepticism about U.S. involvement in Libya:

[O]ur idealistic goals cannot be the sole motivation for the use of force in U.S. foreign policy. We cannot be the world’s policeman. We cannot use military force to meet every humanitarian challenge that might arise. Where would we stop? Syria, Yemen, Algeria or Iran? What about countries that have been strong allies but do not share all of our values, such as Bahrain, Morocco and Saudi Arabia? What about humanitarian violations in other countries, such as Ivory Coast?

Their "pragmatic idealism" paradigm was a favorite of Richard Nixon's, envisioned, ironically, as a critique of Kissinger's super-realism. Nixon's biographer, Jonathan Aitken, insisted that it was a contradiction in terms.

Obrevity, Please

Roger Cohen reluctantly supports the Libyan intervention reluctantly ordered by President Obama but describes the clear and present dangers in the shifting sands:

There was an Allied offensive during the North African campaign called “Operation Brevity.” It had mixed results, but I’d borrow the name. Speed in ousting Qaddafi, the objective from which Western leaders cannot retreat, is essential. We all know what happens if this Mad Max war festers: The coalition fractures, jihadists seep into a failed state of porous borders, mission creep begins.

Rebels? Who, Us?

Before plunging the U.S. into the Libyan revolution, did President Obama understand how poorly organized the rebels were?

Remember Budapest 1956

Fred Kaplan liked President Obama's Libya speech --

Obama's main point was this: When, as he put it, "our interests and values are at stake," and when taking military action a) carries few risks, b) costs little, and c) may reap huge benefits, both political and humanitarian, then such action is worth taking even if the interests involved aren't quite vital.

-- except for the last bit:

There is...something worrisome about the final minutes of Obama's speech, which took flight into lofty sentiments about America's pledge of a helping hand "for all those yearning for freedom around the world." After the finely measured passages about the need to weigh our values and our interests, this finale comes off as troublingly open-ended—and perhaps dangerously encouraging to some of the world's would-be rebels who should know that, really, we're not going to come help them when their brutal dictators' bullets start to fly.

Not Arguing With Success

As Libyan rebels advance on Tripoli, Andrew Sullivan, who opposed President Obama's intervention, is eating crow. Me, too.

Michele, Nobel

The voice of sober Nixonian realism on Libya is Rep. Michele Bachmann, who said in an interview tonight with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that the U.S. shouldn't have intervened because we're overextended internationally and don't know enough about the anti-Qaddafi rebels or the war's likely outcome.

Sly Of Newt

Newt Gingrich was for the Libyan intervention before he was against it.

Will No One Rid Us Of This Turbulent Colonel?

The "Economist" exhaustively describes the military and diplomatic complexities and perils of the Libyan war and concludes:

Given the range of uncertainties, the question of targeting Colonel Qaddafi himself becomes more relevant. Without him, it is hard to see the regime surviving for more than a few weeks. The coalition will not change its declared position that killing the Libyan war leader is not on its list of objectives. But were it somehow to happen, few would complain.

Buying Abstentions

What did the Obama administration give up or promise so that Russia or China wouldn't veto the UN Security Council resolution the U.S. needed for our latest war? Some unpleasant speculation here.

The Obama Freedom Agenda

From "HuffoPo"'s daily congressional affairs e-mail:

The White House press office this morning sent around a readout of the President's call with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip. These emails are usually pretty perfunctory, relaying how the president hopes to continue the two countries' ongoing efforts to promote economic growth and monitor some issue of regional importance (in this case Libya). However: "They underscored their shared commitment to the goal of helping provide the Libyan people an opportunity to transform their country, by installing a democratic system that respects the people's will," it reads. Democracy through military action? Didn't the president sort of campaign against that? Somewhere George W. Bush is wearing sweatpants, watching The Sandlot, eating Bugles and chuckling to himself.

The Morning Line On Libya

David Brooks on the shortcomings and perils of making war by coalition. For instance:

Most wars are fought by nations — by people aroused not only by common interests but by common passions, moralities and group loyalties. Multilateral campaigns rarely, on the other hand, arouse people. They are organized by elites, and propelled by calculation, not patriotism. No one wants to die for the Arab League, the United Nations or some temporary coalition of the willing.

In the Libyan campaign, Qaddafi’s defenders will be fighting for land, home, God and country. The multinational force will be organized by an acronym and motivated by a calibrated calculus to achieve a humanitarian end.

Also from the New York Times this morning, we learn:

[T]he firepower of more than 130 Tomahawk cruise missiles and attacks by allied warplanes have not yet succeeded in accomplishing the more ambitious demands by the United States — repeated by President Obama in a letter to Congress on Monday — that Colonel Qaddafi withdraw his forces from embattled cities and cease all attacks against civilians.

As the days pass, let's remember what he said.

Take Qaddafi. Please.

A provocative analysis from one of the unidentified readers of "The Daily Dish":

The Arab League has played us well. Our intervention in Libya is the perfect distraction.

Now that we're enmeshed in Libya, we will have far less attention to pay to Saudi intervention in Bahrain, or to the regimes' responses to protests in Jordan, Syria and Yemen. And what easy marks we are. We find it impossible to sit on the sidelines as critical events unfold in other nations, and we are desperately afraid that the Middle East, and its oil, is slipping away from our control. Libya, with a madman for a tyrant, is an easy intervention target. Here, the Arab League seemed to say, do you need to make a stand for human rights in the Middle East? Take Libya. We all hate him anyway.

We are gullible beyond belief. Did Obama, Clinton, Cameron and Sarkozy ever stop to ask themselves who really benefits from our intervention in Libya? No, a bottomless stockpile of missiles combined with a sincere, if narcissistic, belief in ourselves as a "force for good" in the world, made us ripe for the con.

More Cautious, And Experienced, Than Obama

Colin Powell, speaking before the attacks on Libya
Hat tip to "The Daily Dish"