Obama, Libya and 2012

After dragging out as much as possible on the U.N.’s resolution to intervene in Libya, Barack Obama acts as if nothing had happened, as if this third front—after Iraq and Afghanistan—was hardly worth discussing. First of all, the commander in chief took his trip to Brazil just as the coalition began its assault on Gadhafi’s forces—a way of saying the military intervention is not a big deal. Then, in Obama’s 20-minute speech in Rio de Janeiro, the “44th” only made a brief allusion to Libya.

It is because this new front, though limited in duration and intensity—it does not resemble what is going on in Afghanistan—is occurring at the worst time for President Obama.

Obama’s difficult position is that the Libyan intervention is a hindrance to his agenda. The months leading up to the 2012 election were intended to be entirely devoted to domestic politics and, more specifically, to jobs and the economy. America’s participation in neutralizing Gadhafi’s army serves as an impediment to this program.

Furthermore, the 2008 victory was founded on Obama’s opposition to American intervention in Iraq and on his plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible. Here we have the Nobel Prize recipient opening a third front, though Americans have little appetite for yet another military intervention and even hope, according to a recent poll, that the troops in Afghanistan abandon an unwinnable war.

For President Obama, American participation in the coalition is worth the criticism from conservatives for intervening too late, and from the left for intervening at all. The American people may have trouble seeing the country’s interest in a war that does not utter its name. So it is a narrow path for the president. If a single American plane is shot down by Libyan loyalists, the intervention would become a political setback for the 44th.

What is more, at a time when Democrats and Republicans are about to clash on the issue of budget, Libya is a distraction that Obama would prefer to make of the economy.

The decision to participate in international conflict, if just from a moral standpoint, could cost Barack Obama dearly politically right when preparations begin for the 2012 race.