UK: White House silence on Libya

Telegraph

Obama's strange silence on Libya
By Alex Spillius

Once again, the White House has fluffed its lines on the Arab revolution. With Gaddafi’s helicopter gunships strafing his own people, with corpses piling up on the streets of Tripoli, President Barack Obama has remained silent.

He did make a speech today, in Ohio, at a “Winning the Future Forum on Small Business”. Winning the future is the president’s new slogan. Boosting small business is essential to strengthening the American recovery.

But winning the future in the Middle East and north Africa matters too. This was a ready-made opportunity to make brief remarks that would have not just urged restraint on the Libyan dictator but urged him, if not to step aside, then recognise the forces for change in his country.

There must be many, many people in Libya who are fence-sitting at the moment; the right words of support from the president of the United States could make all the difference to a tribal leader, an army colonel, the head of a provincial lawyers’ guild uncertain about throwing in their lot with those already brave enough to take to the streets or disown Gaddhafi.

The administration’s output on Libya has been thus: a brief written statement from the president condemning violence and supporting basic rights, issued on Friday; a similar statement issued by Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, on Monday, and a televised statement by Clinton today, in which she strongly condemned the violence. The Secretary of State is of course a powerful voice, but this was on occasion when the top man was required.

The White House is perhaps worried that supporting the opposition too strongly would only inflame Gaddhafi and his sons even further. It would point to the fact that behind-the-scenes rather than public pressure on Bahrain’s ruling family led to the troops lowering their guns.

But Libya provides an opportunity to divert from the script now prepared for the rest of the Middle East – condemning violence, calling for restraint and respecting the rights of protestors. Col Gaddhafi may not listen to the US, which has little or no leverage on his oil-rich fiefdom, but that is even more reason for the president to forcefully place himself on the right side of history.

The flames of change are already lit in Libya, and the president needs to do his best to make sure they blow in the right direction.


http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/alexspillius/100077264/obamas-strange-silence-on-libya/