Libya, America and the Painful Change

I'm usually a day behind on posting stuff I liked from the Rachel Maddow program, because that's when the transcripts are available. In this case and the next one, I'm able to quote from Monday's transcripts on themes that she continued Tuesday. This first one is on President Obama and Libya.

She began Monday's program by quoting presidents and presidential candidates talking about how they want a limited, humble U.S. foreign policy. Candidate Obama said similar things, and was more specific about wanting to change the image (and reality) of the U.S. throwing its military weight around to control Muslim countries, especially when they've got oil. So when President Obama committed the U.S. military to air action in Libya, it was only after the UN Security Council in effect requested it, U.S. European allies demanded it, and the Arab League approved it. He did not make a grand announcement from the Oval Office, Maddow said, to signal that this is an international and not a U.S. action. He emphasized the U.S. lead role was temporary, and the goals of the operation were precisely what the UN resolution requested, regardless of further U.S. policy goals. He emphasized that no U.S. ground troops will invade. Maddow:

"This is what President Obama promised as a candidate he would do. It is frankly what most presidential candidates have promised as candidates they would do. But the fact that he‘s actually doing it as president is freaking out all corridors of the political world that really kind of liked the interventionist, chest-thumping, triumphalist stuff.

I mean, think about the big picture and what the presidential candidates in 2008 campaigned on and the legacy of George W. Bush. Do you want the narrative of America‘s role in the world to be America leads Western aggression against Arab countries or don‘t you want that? Do you want that continue to be the master narrative about America‘s role in the world, or do you want the narrative to be something different?

President Obama wants the narrative to be something different. He very clearly did not want there to be another American military action in the Arab world. He is very open about his reluctance. He wants everybody to know how reluctant he was.

The White House keeps broadcasting that. Why are they doing that? Because they want the narrative to change. And everything about the character of the intervention shows Mr. Obama‘s reluctance here.

The U.S. commander in the region reporting today U.S. air missions over Libya decreased dramatically today. He says the overwhelming number of missions were flown by non-U.S. pilots. U.S. officials again are going out of their way to point that out."

Maddow is not alone in seeing it this way, but in the media and among foreign policy and military cable-ready mouths, she is in a decided minority. Yet I also believe that time will prove her correct--both about President Obama's actions concerning Libya, and about the reaction to it: including the utterly shameful politically motivated response of GOPer hypocrites and liars, and the "experts" whose thinking is very limited. (Others whose criticism is actually based on applicable principle are subject to analysis of their position rather than the pity and scorn due the former.)

Those who say that if the G/K/Qadaffis aren't deposed or killed this week, President Obama can't walk away from more military action--that he's started a war--are going to turn out to be wrong. And they are going to freak out even more than they're freaking out now. It's going to be painful for everybody, but if President Obama succeeds in this, and he still gets re-elected, it may change America's role in the world for awhile, and for the better.