The Benghazi Bubble

By Justin Raimondo | Antiwar.com  | March 17, 2011

Western European leaders like France's Nicolas Sarkozy are now eager to get in on the Libyan adventure.

Leslie Gelb, the grand old man of foreign policy wonkery – and head of the influential Council on Foreign Relations – noted this, and called their bluff:

So, why don’t they do it? Again, Gelb has the answer:

Now that the way has been cleared for the attack to begin, we’ll soon have a test of the second — most important — part of Gelb’s thesis, and discover the answer to the vital question of whether the world really does have our number.
Just what military role the US will play is not yet clear: in any case, the part played by the Pentagon is bound to be downplayed. There is no mention of this question in the Guardian’s reporting, although we are told:

That Egypt was left off the list of probable Arab participants – Egypt with its huge arsenal of American-bought-and-paid for weaponry, and its cadre of US-trained military officers – is telling: it tells us the Americans are going to be asked to do the heavy lifting, albeit behind the scenes, with the Brits and the Frenchies up front, smiling for the cameras.

At that point, the President of the United States will have to decide whether he wants to fight a war in order to hand the Middle East over to the Saudis – even as they shoot down protesters in the streets of Bahrain.
Which raises the question: What will the UN do about poor forgotten bloodied Bahrain? Will John Kerry, the Arab League, and the Bill Kristols of this world demand Security Council approval for air strikes on King Hamad’s palace? Oh, the suspense is killing me.

The Benghazi bubble – the high expectations of the rebels, and the Western public – is bound to burst. It’s only a question of when. Gadhafi has real support in Tripoli and among some of the southern clans. As the West gets drawn into an increasingly complicated civil war, and the omens of disaster fly overhead, there is still time for President Obama – or Congress – to pull us back from the brink.

I might add, by the way, that by voting for this UN resolution, the administration has implicitly committed us to go to war without a debate in Congress, never mind a vote. But that’s nothing new. George Bush Senior went to the UN to ask permission to go to war for the Emir of Kuwait’s sake before he ever went to Congress. Obama is merely following a by now well-established tradition. The US government is answerable in this matter to all peoples other than its own.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  Justin Raymondo, a Libertarian, is a senior editor with ANTIWAR.COM.

CROSSPOST: http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/03/17/the-benghazi-bubble/