That intervention was meant to prevent the country’s then-dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, from slaughtering the people of Benghazi, as he was threatening to do. Obama did not want to join the fight; he was counseled by Joe Biden and his first-term secretary of defense Robert Gates, among others, to steer clear. But a strong faction within the national-security team—Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, who was then the ambassador to the United Nations, along with Samantha Power, Ben Rhodes, and Antony Blinken, who was then Biden’s national-security adviser—lobbied hard to protect Benghazi, and prevailed...American bombs fell, the people of Benghazi were spared from what may or may not have been a massacre, and Qaddafi was captured and executed.
But Obama says today of the intervention, “It didn’t work.” The U.S., he believes, planned the Libya operation carefully—and yet the country is still a disaster.
YOU AND THE MULTILATERALS ACCOMPLISHED WHAT YOU SET OUT TO DO: AVERT LARGE CIVILIAN CASUALTIES, CIVIL WAR. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
But Obama says today of the intervention, “It didn’t work.” The U.S., he believes, planned the Libya operation carefully—and yet the country is still a disaster.
Why, given what seems to be the president’s natural reticence toward getting militarily ensnarled where American national security is not directly at stake, did he accept the recommendation of his more activist advisers to intervene?
It is American "national security," not American "national interests" that is the focus of the Obama Doctrine and when American national security is directly threatened that is the trip wire. I didn't know that. I have argued that this should be American doctrine for fifteen years.
“The social order in Libya has broken down,” Obama said, explaining his thinking at the time. “You have massive protests against Qaddafi. You’ve got tribal divisions inside of Libya. Benghazi is a focal point for the opposition regime. And Qaddafi is marching his army toward Benghazi, and he has said, ‘We will kill them like rats.’
“Now, option one would be to do nothing, and there were some in my administration who said, as tragic as the Libyan situation may be, it’s not our problem. The way I looked at it was that it would be our problem if, in fact, complete chaos and civil war broke out in Libya.
Why?
But this is not so at the core of U.S. interests that it makes sense for us to unilaterally strike
Ah! Yes, there are those other areas where it is going to be "our problem" in a meaningful sense but not a direct threat to our national security. What do we do then? He opted in Libya for a multi-lateral intervention. It turned into a shit puddle. He regrets it because even though it was multi-lateral it was still American intervention. Multiple boots getting splashed with shit still means your boots got splashed with shit. Avoid shitty boots. Don't Do Shitty Boots.
against the Qaddafi regime. At that point, you’ve got Europe and a number of Gulf countries who despise Qaddafi, or are concerned on a humanitarian basis, who are calling for action. But what has been a habit over the last several decades in these circumstances is people pushing us to act but then showing an unwillingness to put any skin in the game.”
“Free riders?,” I interjected.
“Free riders,” he said, and continued. “So what I said at that point was, we should act as part of an international coalition. But because this is not at the core of our interests,
I have a vague familiarity with "core interests" as it is used here, they are different from "national security," core interests are avoidable shit puddles, they are not as numerous or as large as "national interests" shit puddles but basically the idea is that you are going to get shit on your boots in defending national security, that is unavoidable shit, it is welcome shit but avoid the avoidable shit puddles.
we need to get a UN mandate; we need Europeans and Gulf countries to be actively involved in the coalition; we will apply the military capabilities that are unique to us, but we expect others to carry their weight. And we worked with our defense teams to ensure that we could execute a strategy without putting boots on the ground and without a long-term military commitment in Libya.
“So we actually executed this plan as well as I could have expected: We got a UN mandate, we built a coalition, it cost us $1 billion—which, when it comes to military operations, is very cheap. We averted large-scale civilian casualties, we prevented what almost surely would have been a prolonged and bloody civil conflict. And despite all that, Libya is a mess.”