Gingrich Calls For No-Fly Zone, Then Attacks It

Newt Gingrich speaks to the audience, supporting Republican candidate Sharron Angle, in Las Vegas, Nevada Thursday, October 21, 2010.

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
NYT

Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker, was pretty clear on March 7: President Obama should establish a no-fly zone over Libya “this evening,” he said on Fox News. “All we have to do is suppress his air force, which we could do in minutes,” he said.

At the time, Mr. Gingrich’s comments were seen as a critique of Mr. Obama, whose administration was expressing concern about the potential dangers of using American fighters to enforce order in the air over Libya.

But Mr. Gingrich, a likely presidential candidate has changed his tune. Now that Mr. Obama has joined with other nations to impose a no-fly zone, Mr. Gingrich is attacking him for it. He said the United States is already involved in two wars and that the standard Mr. Obama used to justify military action could have been applied all over the world.

“I would not have intervened,” Mr. Gingrich said on NBC’s “Today” show Wednesday morning. “I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Qaddafi. I think there are a lot of other allies in the region we could have worked with. I would not have used American and European forces.

(More here.)