Turkey: US commitment to help those against Gaddafi

Hurriyet Daily News

US ambiguous on Libya strike outcome

As U.S. President Barack Obama and his military chief work to lower expectations about the outcome of an initial assault on Libya, American officials have said it is too early to define the international military campaign’s endgame.

More than two weeks ago, Obama insisted Moammar Gadhafi leave office and declared the Libyan leader had “lost the legitimacy to lead.” The U.S. president had, however, appeared less and less inclined to join the fight in Libya until the United Nations suddenly approved military action late last week.

As he announced Saturday that America had begun applying its overwhelming military force, Obama said the U.S. was engaged in “a limited military action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians.” Obama significantly moderated his anti-Gadhafi rhetoric even as U.S. forces began pouring Tomahawk cruise missiles on Libya’s air fields and anti-aircraft batteries.

By Sunday, Obama’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff was saying the allied mission against the Libyan leader could end with Gadhafi still in power. Adm. Mike Mullen said the aim of the allied air campaign was limited and not “about seeing him [Gadhafi] go.” Asked on NBC television if the U.N.-approved air assault on Libya could be successful without dislodging Gadhafi, Mullen said: “That’s certainly potentially one outcome.”

Throughout the more-than-month-long upheaval in Libya, American statements have reflected the administration’s internal ambiguity, particularly in comparison to its handling of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt that sparked deep unrest throughout the Arab world.

Despite the shifting rhetoric, Aaron David Miller, a senior Middle East adviser to six U.S. secretaries of state, said Gadhafi’s removal is the U.S. goal. “There is now only one acceptable outcome: Gadhafi’s ouster or defeat,” said Miller, now a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. “Anything less will further reduce American credibility in the eyes of dictators and democrats alike.”

As the United States began hammering Libyan air defenses under the cover of U.N. Resolution 1973, it also took comfort in initial support from the Arab League. But that was called into question Sunday when Arab League chief Amr Moussa criticized the missile strikes, saying they went beyond what the Arab body had supported.

With the U.S., Britain and France now engaged, Obama faces significant opposition among critics who see dangers in a lack of precise goals and, as important, an exit strategy. One of the more vocal skeptics in Congress is Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“We really have not discovered who it is in Libya that we are trying to support. Obviously the people that are against Gadhafi, but who?” he said on CBS television. “In eastern Libya, for example, a huge number of people went off to help the Iraqis against the United States in a war that still is winding down.”

Aware of those fears in the United States and a deep weariness with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama emphasized that he was “deeply aware of the risks of any military action, no matter what limits we place on it.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the U.S. expects to turn control of the Libya military mission over to a coalition – probably headed either by the French and British or by NATO – “in a matter of days".

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