On Libya: 'What Happens Then?'
Mar 20 2011, 12:35 AM ET
The Atlantic
By James Fallows
BEIJING, China -- I am in the middle of other things here in China and am not a Libya expert. But this is a moment when people in any form of public life (ie, including the commentariat) are supposed to be counted rather than clamming up and waiting to see how things turn out. So I am interrupting my guest posters one more time, to say:
Count me among those very skeptical of how this commitment was made and where it might lead.
How it was made: it cannot reassure anyone who cares about America's viability as a republic that it is entering another war with essentially zero Congressional consultation or "buy-in," and with very little serious debate outside the Executive Branch itself. And there the debate was, apparently, mostly about changing the President's own mind. I recognize that there are times when national safety requires an Administration to respond quickly, without enduring the posturing and institutionalized dysfunction that is the modern Congress. Without going through all the arguments, I assert that this is not such a moment. To be more precise: the Administration has not made the public case that the humanitarian and strategic stakes in Libya are so unique as to compel intervention there (even as part of a coalition), versus the many other injustices and tragedies we deplore but do not go to war to prevent. I can think of several examples in my current part of the world.
I didn't like the "shut up and leave it to us" mode of foreign policy when carried out by people I generally disagreed with, in the Bush-Cheney era. I don't like it when it's carried out by people I generally agree with, in this Administration.
(More here.)
The Atlantic
By James Fallows
BEIJING, China -- I am in the middle of other things here in China and am not a Libya expert. But this is a moment when people in any form of public life (ie, including the commentariat) are supposed to be counted rather than clamming up and waiting to see how things turn out. So I am interrupting my guest posters one more time, to say:
Count me among those very skeptical of how this commitment was made and where it might lead.
How it was made: it cannot reassure anyone who cares about America's viability as a republic that it is entering another war with essentially zero Congressional consultation or "buy-in," and with very little serious debate outside the Executive Branch itself. And there the debate was, apparently, mostly about changing the President's own mind. I recognize that there are times when national safety requires an Administration to respond quickly, without enduring the posturing and institutionalized dysfunction that is the modern Congress. Without going through all the arguments, I assert that this is not such a moment. To be more precise: the Administration has not made the public case that the humanitarian and strategic stakes in Libya are so unique as to compel intervention there (even as part of a coalition), versus the many other injustices and tragedies we deplore but do not go to war to prevent. I can think of several examples in my current part of the world.
I didn't like the "shut up and leave it to us" mode of foreign policy when carried out by people I generally disagreed with, in the Bush-Cheney era. I don't like it when it's carried out by people I generally agree with, in this Administration.
(More here.)
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