Covering Fire

Conventional wisdom regarding American military intervention is usually limited to the supposed lessons of the last major conflict. During the first half of the Cold War, proponents of a robust national defense, and a willingness to use it, often evoked the infamous Munich Agreement of 1938 to justify their position. Appeasement had failed to thwart Germany's growing ambitions, the argument went, and America must not repeat that mistake when confronted with Communist aggression. It would have been better to have stopped Hitler in 1938, rather than allowing him an additional year to rearm and prepare for war.

After Vietnam, the new conventional wisdom disavowed American military interventions - particularly for nebulous conflicts that could be classified as civil wars. These are quagmires for foolish outsiders, the thinking went.

After the First Gulf War, post-Vietnam non-interventionism went on the back-burner even though it was still the dominant thinking of the left. Democrats who had opposed the 1991 action had taken a political hit, and were less vocal with their views for fear of appearing to the electorate as appeasers of aggressive and tyrannical regimes. The 1990s saw the Clinton Administration drift from one crisis to another without much of a philosophy to anchor it. Occasionally the United States would intervene (Haiti, Kosovo), occasionally she wouldn't (Rwanda). Sometimes she would withdraw after taking casualties (Somalia), other times she would enter the conflict only after both sides had exhausted themselves (Bosnia). National interest rarely guided. Often, the decisive factor behind Clintonian intervention was whether the operation required ground forces, and the possibility of significant American casualties. Frankly, there are far worst criteria for judging whether to make a humanitarian intervention, and if the possibility of casualties can be minimized because of a reliance on air power, a major objection to American involvement would have been lifted. Hence, the Clinton years saw a number of military operations that produced few American combat deaths. The irony was that Clinton was evoking a military philosophy that had been derided by the left years earlier (the "Jupiter Complex" which held that Western democracies could utilize massive bombing campaigns to punish and deter autocratic and aggressive regimes). This was used to justify such campaigns against Germany, Japan and Vietnam. Clinton, on a much more limited scale, used this thinking to bomb Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan & Sudan, with the only real criticism coming from crypto-Stalinists and their brethren. He never sought Congressional approval, but his fellow Democrats and the American mainstream left remained mostly silent.

After the presidential election of 2004, when John Kerry failed to adopt a coherent position on the Iraq War, the Democrats who had initially supported the invasion began to abandon the continuing conflict in droves. As the public developed their own war fatigue, the post-Vietnam conventional wisdom regarding non-interventionism, latent for the previous decade, returned to the forefront. For 20 years, the lesson had been - we can't have another Vietnam. Now, the lesson has become: we can't have another Iraq.

As the current crisis in Libya drags on, opponents of intervention shout "Iraq" just as pundits would scream "Munich" or "Vietnam" in earlier generations. Iraq is used as a one size fits all argument to be adapted to any circumstance. Proponents of intervention and aiding the Libyan rebellion against Qadaffi's tyranny suggest the implementation of a no-fly zone to prevent the Colonel's air force from slaughtering the resistance. This could be done without American boots on the ground - the type of operation Clinton frequently relied upon. However, non-interventionists have their arguments lined up. Here is Maureen Dowd, writing in yesterday's New York Times:

The Iraq war hawks urging intervention in Libya are confident that there’s no way Libya could ever be another Iraq.

Of course, they never thought Iraq would be Iraq, either.

All President Obama needs to do, Paul Wolfowitz asserts, is man up, arm the Libyan rebels, support setting up a no-fly zone and wait for instant democracy.

It’s a cakewalk.

Didn’t we arm the rebels in Afghanistan in the ’80s? And didn’t many become Taliban and end up turning our own weapons on us? And didn’t one mujahadeen from Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden, go on to lead Al Qaeda?

So that worked out well.

Do you follow the argument? We intervened in Iraq, and Dowd believes that wasn't worth it. She points to another intervention that had dubious results. Ergo, we shouldn't intervene in Libya. The flaw, of course, is that the United States have made dozens of interventions over the past 30 years, many of which have had very good outcomes (Panama, Grenada, Kosovo, etc.). Similarly, some of our non-interventions have had horrible outcomes (Rwanda). Just as the lessons of Munich can not be applied to all cases, Dowd's reliance on what she perceives as the failures of Iraq don't apply to all arguments for intervention. But her argument has little other substance to it. For example:

“It is both morally right and in America’s strategic interest to enable the Libyans to fight for themselves,” Wolfowitz wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece.

You would think that a major architect of the disastrous wars and interminable occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq would have the good manners to shut up and take up horticulture. But the neo-con naif has no shame.

Clearly, this is not a rational rebuttal to intervention. It's name-calling. She tries a different avenue in the next paragraph:

After all, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates told West Point cadets last month, “In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”

No one is suggesting we send a big land army into Libya. She's quoting Gates to rebut a nonexistent argument. This is about putting in a no-fly zone, about which, Dowd does say this:

Wolfowitz was driven to invade Iraq and proselytize for the Libyan rebels partly because of his guilt over how the Bush I administration coldly deserted the Shiites and Kurds who were urged to rise up against Saddam at the end of the 1991 gulf war. Saddam sent out helicopters to slaughter thousands. (A NATO no-fly zone did not stop that.)

Get it? Dowd can dismiss the argument for a Libyan no-fly zone because the Iraqi one didn't work. However, her argument is factually flawed. The First Gulf War ended in early 1991, but the southern no-fly zone was not implemented until the summer of 1992. It was put in place as a result of Saddam's post-war slaughter of the Shia. It didn't stop the killing - it was a response to it. Once in place, there were no more major air attacks on the Shia. Dowd's version of what happened is perverse. One wonders where she got her argument from? Maybe it was from the Secretary of State, who said this to Congress on Thursday:

I want to remind people that we had a no-fly zone over Iraq. It did not prevent Saddam Hussein from slaughtering people on the ground and it did not get him out of office.

If the Iraq no-fly zone had been in effect during the Shia uprising, maybe they would have succeeded in removing Saddam? Furthermore, once implemented, it prevented subsequent slaughters, which is why Mrs. Clinton's husband kept it in place for his entire presidency. A no-fly zone can have a humanitarian benefit without removing the dictator. It is disturbing that the former-First Lady would question her husband's policy a decade later in such a ham-handed fashion.

The argument against a Libyan no-fly zone is weakening, so Dowd's article made this concession:

It’s hard to know how to proceed, but in his rush, Wolfowitz never even seems to have a good understanding of the tribal thickets he wants America to wade into.

Earlier, when Dowd told Wolfowitz to "shut up," it didn't mean he was wrong - she just didn't want to hear from him.

Yes, there are tribal thickets and other risks to intervention, but how long can Obama play Hamlet? When does not rushing become dithering? Another White House apologist, Fred Kaplan, made a similar argument about caution earlier this week. I argued at the time:

This sounds like dithering to me. Or, is it normal for an administration to take weeks to figure out what they want to see happen? Once that is figured out, should we give them another three weeks to determine if the U.S. has leverage? At that point, because we can only expect it to happen then, how long will it take them to decide what's the best course of action? A month? Kaplan acknowledges that there probably is "a good way to help the rebels militarily," we just shouldn't expect a decision until Memorial Day. But, make no mistake about it - that's not dithering! 

Yesterday, the Arab League asked the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya. The League knows that any no-fly zone would be led by the United States, weakening the argument that an American intervention will trigger Arab fears of Yankee imperialism. Dowd, Clinton, and Kaplan are not alone in providing cover for Obama's non-interventionism, but their arguments are evaporating.

While Obama remains in the Oval Office, is America doomed to a foreign policy that is nothing more than: "We're not Bush!" Is there any chance he could be convinced that a Libyan no-fly zone would echo the policies of the 42nd president rather than the Iraq invasion? After all, Reuters reported this on Friday:

Former President Bill Clinton said the United States should enforce a no-fly zone over Libya to allow a fair fight between insurgents and troops loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Indeed.