The Obama Doctrine and the Total Failure of German Diplomacy

Yesterday evening, Obama laid out the reasons why the United States has intervened in Libya. The speech also serves as a quasi-framework for the Obama Doctrine.

I felt the sting as Obama listed America’s closest allies: Denmark, Norway, Italy and then Turkey (!) — but not Germany. He added, “To brush aside America’s responsibility as a leader and — more profoundly — our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are. Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”

The Germans were willing to wait for those images. “Turn a blind eye” was Westerwelle’s position despite his earlier speech about “values-based foreign policy.”* Merkel, who was once considered a trans-Atlantic figure (and who also received abundant American praise for this unsubstantiated rumor), supported her second-in-command’s isolationist/radical pacifist course of action.

Obama referred to NATO taking over command of Libyan operations. Last week, Germany withdrew from the NATO-enforced arms embargo against Libya. Incomprehensibly, Germany abstained from voting in favor of the Security Council resolution and withdrew its ships from their anti-terrorism mission in the Mediterranean, where they had been on patrol since the 9/11 attacks. Why? Because there was a possibility that they might have to use force against Libyan ships.

In an attempt to atone for that disgrace, we’re now going to send AWACS crews to Afghanistan, something the government had been actively resisting for months. A low point in German foreign policy.

Obama’s speech targeted both the isolationists and advocates of regime change. He made clear why it wasn’t in the best interest of the United States to allow Gadhafi to have his way: The Arab liberation movement shouldn’t be weakened by signaling that the brutal tyranny would be allowed to continue. A refugee problem had to be avoided. The most powerful reason, however, was his appeal to American values: It would be a betrayal of those values, Obama emphasized, if they shied away from intervening when they were able to do so.

It doesn’t necessarily follow, as some critics of intervention argue, that intervention in Libya would mean intervention everywhere. He laid out those conditions necessary for it: A legitimate call for assistance from within the country, a United Nations resolution authorizing involvement, willing participants from the region, a state of emergency and the possibility of preventing an escalation of the violence without massive losses by those intervening.

Precisely to avoid endangering the legitimacy of the intervention, it wouldn’t follow that it would have to “go all the way” and topple Gadhafi militarily. That would be the responsibility of the Libyan people alone, protected and supported by international troops there to reduce the chances of Gadhafi’s troops precipitating a massacre. Using Western ground troops would convert the legitimate revolt into a broadly unpopular occupation. Obama emphasized that it would be wrong to say that anyone not prepared to go all the way (as in Iraq?) would be better advised to do nothing at all.

It is right as well as wise that Obama sees America’s role as forming as broad a coalition as possible and then withdrawing as much as possible from a leadership role militarily. North Africa is primarily a matter for its neighbors and the Europeans. A few Europeans actually understand that concept.

Should Gadhafi go to ground in Tripoli once his military has been denied the opportunity to terrorize the Libyan people, the role of the coalition will be to enforce the no-fly zone and monitor the movement of heavy equipment on the ground. By supporting the rebels and applying embargoes and diplomatic pressure, regime change may come to pass without discrediting the revolution by foreign occupation — and without feeding the suspicion among Libya’s neighbors that it was nothing more than a neo-colonial adventure.

Aaron David Miller summarized the Obama Doctrine in The New York Times as follows: “If we can, if there’s a moral case, if we have allies, and if we can transition out and not get stuck, we’ll move to help. The Obama doctrine is the ‘hedge your bets and make sure you have a way out’ doctrine. He learned from Afghanistan and Iraq.”

I consider it a total failure of German diplomacy that we aren’t supporting this most welcome change.

*Translator’s Note: Guido Westerwelle serves as vice chancellor and foreign minister in the current coalition government.