The Audacity of Hypocrisy: Obama's Lovely Little Libyan Adventure

Thursday, 31st March 2011

Hypocrisy is a necessary condition of leadership in a large, modern democracy. Not just there either, now that I think of it. That's often obviously the case in foreign affairs and clearly so in our present Libyan adventure. It is quite a remarkable undertaking, based on the most remarkable set of circumstances and thanks to a quite remarkable coalition that has given the mission its tepid blessing. Consider...

Earlier this week President Obama said he "refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action." Consider that for a moment. It's an interesting choice of words making it clear that this is an Al-Jazeera War. No Al-Jazeera cameras* or pictures of any kind from Libya; no war. Such is the power of the camera. Combine cameras with Gaddafi's stpudity - other tyrants won't, one assumes, make the mistake of promising "no mercy" - and suddenly that's a nice little war you have there.

And it is a war, not a bloody kinetic military action. Naturally for all that Obama and everyone else ruled out using ground troops it seems - surprise! - this should not be taken to mean an absence of US and UK non-civilians operating inside Libya. The SAS and officers from MI6 have been joined by CIA operatives in Libya and no-one, surely, should be shocked if more of their compatriots follow sooner rather than later.

So this is how it works: we give the Chinese and the Russians a veto over a UN resolution we insist we need if our war is to be legal or legitimate. We also think it capital that the dreadful leaders of dreadful middle eastern states offer some kind of meagre blessing. Next we cheerfully exceed the spirit, though perhaps not the letter, of the UN resolution we insist mattered so much as we take action that goes some way beyond simply "protecting" civilians from Gaddafi's vengeance.

The UN is useful only as a starting pistol and once the planes are flying the UN can be ignored. Some might find it strange that our ability to do "the right thing" is so contingent on the approval of all the wrong people and that we cannot ignore those people in the build-up to the fighting but can, indeed must, ignore them once the shooting match begins but there you go, that's the remarkable worlds of international diplomacy and modern warfare for you.

Meanwhile, the American president is busy pretending that his people aren't playing any significant role at all! It's like some kind of music hall turn: now you see the rabbit, now you don't. Watch my lips, not my hands. Of course we're not interested in regime change and of course we know that regime change is essential. Of course it's for the Libyan people to "decide their own future" which is why we've taken sides in a civil war to help them make up their minds. But not too quickly or decisively! As David Frum argues, current policy is to help the rebels a bit but not too much:

In fact, the Obama administration is obviously very concerned about bringing Islamic radicals to power in Libya. Unlike the Sarkozy government, the Obama administration has not recognized the rebels as the legitimate government of the country. It is instead proposing a conference at which various factions will be present – and at which Western governments will have more scope to pick and choose, as happened in Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taliban. By concentrating on the air war, and providing only limited help to the rebels on the ground, the Obama administration keeps the rebels weak and maximizes NATO’s relative sway over Libya’s future.

If that seems too cynical to you it's entirely of a piece with a policy made up on the hoof. That's fine too! It may all end well and let's hope it does. It may even have been the right thing to do. But one must admire, like Frum, the audacity of the hypocrisy, not to mention the fraudulence, with which Obama is making his case. If it weren't quite so serious it would be amusing. We may only have had "interests" in Libya a couple of months ago; now we actually do have "vital interests" engaged in the north african desert. And so the mission scuttles on, growing larger and more remarkable all the time and unless we're very lucky there'll be landmines aplenty on the road ahead...

*These days there's no need to produce an actual severed ear. The mere threat of one may do.

Filed under: Foreign Policy (318 more articles) , Gaddafi (134 more articles) , Libya (295 more articles) , Obama (366 more articles) , United Nations (83 more articles) , War (157 more articles)

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ndm

March 31st, 2011 6:56am Report this comment

I think Libya to be a tactical bypass on the strategic goal of freeing as many Arab nations as possible during the current disruptive phase. I also think it somewhat important to that strategy that the West continue to disequiibriate the Arab World without making it look as if it is doing so.

To that end, regardless of any hypocrisy in our response, I think Obama is playing a pretty reasonable hand. I don't think he is making up policy on the hoof as much as responding to situations he, quite rightly, doesn't want to get too far in front of. (I inserted the "too far" in the last sentence because some hypocrits would call him a coward for not wanting to get in front of such a fluid situation.)

John Dubai

March 31st, 2011 7:14am Report this comment

The muddled approach is (perhaps perversely) surely the right one. Consider the alternatives - at one end, you leave them to it, no intervention whatsoever: you are accused of being callous, standing by while a dictator massacres his people, you have no influence at all on what happens in the region, and allow significant oil interests to be tied-up, if not lost due to the fighting. Or you can go at it gung-ho: it's another Iraq/Afghanistan, the ire of the Arab world is raised, the local population likely alienated and the responsibility of running the country afterwards - with all the cost and risk that this entails - is entirely yours. Or there is the "hypocritical" or "muddled" approach which seems to have been so lambasted in the popular press. You quietly support your own interests (security of oil supply, stability in the region), but not so overtly or drastically that you can be accused of a damaging Iraq style intervention. You do enough to garner the support of the local population - (the rebels, whom it is vital to ensure that they win. The endorsement of supranational bodies is important, no matter how tinpot; surely we've learnt from Blair etc. that the veneer of consensus, legality and local support is essential to very important public relations aspect of the intervention?

The Coalition's dilemma is: how do we support our local strategic interest in Libya and make the right moral choice of protecting an opressed and threatened population, without damaging the wider diplomatic situation, especially the volatile relations with arab nations and leaving oneself vulnerable to calls of imperalism and unnecessary violence?