Legal Commentary

The Obama Doctrine

By Big Tent Democrat

In an excellent post, James Joyner points to Dan Nexon's post on Obama's speech:

I might be wrong, but I don't consider the "Humanitarian-intervention-against-militarily-weak-fossil-fuel-producing-countries-in-strategically-important-regions-that-are-also-located-near-many-large-NATO-military-bases-and-are-run-by-dictators-who-kind-of-piss-us-off-and-have-no-powerful-allies Doctrine" the stuff of Grand Strategy. But if you read between the lines, that's pretty much the gist of what Obama had to say tonight.

I do not find it the stuff of coherence or prudence. But the ad hoc nature of this foreign and military policy decision does not bother me. I am not big on "Grand Strategies" either. However I do object to the lack of logic and coherence regarding the Libya intervention. In my view, each ad hoc situation must have logic and coherence. I do not see them in the Libya intervention.

There are two major objections I have to the rationale for the military intervention provided by President Obama last night. The first is the manufactured notion that events in Libya will quell the "Arab Awakening" in Tunisia and Egypt (oh BTW, who knows how that is going to turn out.) What is the evidence for that? Was Gaddafi planning on marching into Egypt? Surely not. Moreover, Syria, Bahrain, Jordan, and dare I say it, Saudi Arabia, are not that far away. More . . .

The second objection I have is that the policy implemented is, as far as I can tell, to intervene and heighten a civil war in Libya . . . but not too much. This surely is not the most humanitarian approach, as it seems designed to maximize the bloodshed that such a civil war will lead to.

Let's hope for the best, but let's not pretend that the Libya intervention is steeped in coherence and prudence. I hope it works out. I'm not convinced by the decisionmaking process and the decision itself.

One silver lining is that President Obama seems to have drawn a line in the sand on ground forces (though arms shipments to the insurgents seems a distinct possibility (not very humanitarian you might say.)) It seems that Obama has gone as far as he will go in Libya.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 29, 2011 (boomark / email).