Not at all good news from the AP:
Moammar Gadhafi’s forces swept rebels from a key oil town Sunday with waves of strikes from warships, tanks and warplanes, closing on the opposition-held eastern half of Libya as insurgents pleaded for a U.N.-imposed no-fly zone.
Gadhafi’s troops have been emboldened by a string of victories in the struggle for Libya’s main coastal highway but their supply lines are stretched and their dependence on artillery, airstrikes and naval attacks makes it hard for them to swiftly consolidate control of territory, particularly at night…
That last is very important – one might recall the way Rommel’s Afrika Corps and the British 8th Army see-sawed back and forth across that very terrain for years…with advances and retreats measured, at times, in hundreds of miles. Just because Gadhafi is advancing it doesn’t mean he’s won – but he’s just as clearly not losing, at the moment.
What is most terrible about this is the way President Obama is refusing to lead. Even if one wants to subscribe to the absurd theory that US intervention causes hatred of the United States, in this case the Arab League has given the go-ahead for a no-fly zone. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Gates’ assertion that imposing a no-fly zone means a systemic campaign against Libyan air defense is just a dodge – Libya doesn’t have much of an air defense and, at any rate, all we’d have to do is shoot down a few to make the rest wary of even going up in the air. Additionally, Libyan naval craft are causing all manner of trouble for the rebels (naturally in a campaign which is coastal in nature – there isn’t much in Libya once you get a couple dozen miles from the coast) – and I defy anyone to tell me that the US Navy can’t make short work of the Libyan navy.
And just imagine if Gadhafi wins! Goodness, after he’s done massacring the rebels he’ll then figure that the United States really is a paper tiger. It will be back to terrorism-sponsoring and nuclear weapons-building for Gadhafi. There is no upside to US policy if Gadhafi prevails; there is also no upside if there’s a stalemate between Gadhafi and the rebels. The only possible good outcome is Gadhafi out of power – even at the risk of an Islamist regime replacing him (a distinct possibility we cannot ignore…but, even so, better than Gadhafi at this point…he’s a mad dog, now). And getting rid of him is not that difficult – almost all the fighting would be done by Libyans. All we need do is provide some logistic support and keep the Libyan air and naval forces off the rebels’ back.
But I don’t think we’ll do it. Word is that Hillary will meet with some rebel leaders in a day or two. By that time Gadhafi might be in Benghazi. This is not the time to consider options and attempt to find consensus – now is the time to decide: get rid of Gadhafi, or not? If its “not”, then we should say so…if its “get rid of”, then we must act, today, to make it so.
The world watches to see if Obama’s America is capable of action on the side of justice.
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