Only months after becoming the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama embarked on an “American Apology Tour” in the Middle East. The most publicized stop on this tour was in Cairo, Egypt, where Obama shamelessly cowered before the Muslim world, actually enunciated an equivocation which painted the “Palestinian slaughter of innocent Israeli civilians” as no worse than Israel’s continued settlements, and announced to television audiences everywhere that America had no right intervene in the affairs of other nations.
By eschewing intervention, Obama was assuring Iranian leaders that he had no intention of standing between them and nuclear development. Said Obama: “No single nation should pick and choose which nation holds nuclear weapons.”
Through these and other statements on the American Apology Tour, Obama conceded the moral high ground via a not-so-tacit admission that America has no business telling the rest of the world how to handle its business. And although this was a major reversal from the George W. Bush Doctrine of pre-emption, it was congruent with Obama’s previous positions as an anti-war candidate who had opposed the Iraq War because he believed no one knew how much it was going to cost nor “what our exit strategy might be,” among other things.
When you couple Obama’s stated opposition to the Iraq War – and not just the opposition, but also the reasons for that opposition – with his clearly stated belief that we lack the moral authority to police the world, it is somewhat discombobulating to listen to him justify our actions in Libya by pointing to America’s moral duty to stave off the slaughter of innocents.
Obama’s exact words, used to justify U.S. military action in Libya, were: “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.” (Notice how we’ve suddenly gone from being a country that has no right to throw its weight around in this world to be being “a leader.” We’ve gone from assuring Iran we have no right to “pick and choose” how another nation handles its affairs to telling Libya we’ve chosen how things should go there.)
Pardon me if I’m mistaken, but it seems like Mr. Obama is actually making a moral argument to justify the action we’ve undertaken against Muammar Gaddafi. Moreover, it sounds a lot like the arguments Bush made to justify ousting Saddam Hussein (an ouster which I supported 100%).
The problem for Obama is that everything he’s saying is out whack. He is supporting the very things he’s spent the last few years of his life opposing, and it makes him look like a snake oil salesman. Moreover, he has no idea how expensive this war will be nor does even hint at an exit strategy, except for the frequent announcement that NATO will soon take the lead in the military action (which even the AP recognizes is like announcing that “the U.S. [that currently] runs the show…is taking over running the show.”)
To put it simply, there is a considerable gap between the words Obama uses and the things we see him do. And since to date, morality has not been much of a guiding factor in his presidency, I am somewhat squeamish about jumping aboard his morality train at this point.
I remain steadfastly behind our troops. And wish them patience as they wait for Obama to come up with a strategy. I also pray for their safety and success in that mission, whenever it is defined and whatever it may be.
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