The Wall Street Journal
How Republicans can behave like a constructive opposition. .
President Obama made a substantial case for his Libya intervention for the first time Monday evening and however overdue and self-referential (I refused to let that happen) we welcome the effort. Perhaps it will give Republicans a reason to emerge as constructive rather than partisan foreign-policy critics as well.
We say perhaps because the instinctive temptation for some Republicans has been to oppose the Libyan mission led by a Democratic Commander in Chief. Some object to the operations cost amid record deficits others gripe about Mr. Obamas reflexive bow to the international community while still others are responding to a part of the GOP cable-TV and Internet base that wants fewer foreign interventions after Iraq and Afghanistan.
A few prominent Republicans are already throwing out that last pitch. What are we doing in Libya? asked Mississippi Governor and possible Presidential candidate Haley Barbour last week in Iowa. I mean we have to be careful in my mind about getting into nation-building exercises whether its in Libya or somewhere else. Weve been in Afghanistan 10 years.
Yes America has and for national security reasons that the last two Presidents have found persuasive. As for nation-building in Libya we have yet to notice a U.S. official who has advocated the deployment of American ground troops much less a long-term mission rebuilding a Libyan state.
Mr. Barbours glib resort to this trope of the isolationist left suggests he hasnt thought very hard about foreign policy. It is the kind of politics Americans have come to expect from Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reidthis war is lostnot Republicans who have since Reagan been the party of robust nationalism.
This is not to say that Mr. Obamas policy is above criticism which he invites by so overtly disavowing American global leadership. Republicans instinctively recoil when they hear a President put greater moral stock in the Arab League and U.N. than in Congress before using military force.
House Speaker John Boehners questions to Mr. Obama last week concerning the Libyan missions goals are certainly appropriate and it was clear from Monday nights speech that they have influenced the Administrations argument. Mr. Obama was at pains to portray the Libyan effort as the product of U.S. leadership though the French Arabs and Libyan rebels all had to plead the U.S. to act.
This is what we mean by constructive criticism by a loyal opposition whose goal is to help the U.S. succeed in its missionas the American military is well on its way to doing by the way. Despite the diplomatic confusion of last week the expansion of a no-fly zone to target Moammar Gadhafis forces is already paying benefits on the ground. The rebels have retaken several cities and yesterday were moving on the Gadhafi hometown of Sirte. Gadhafis loyalists must be recalculating the cost of their allegiance.
Republicans ought to prod Mr. Obama to push for a faster resolution that ends with the toppling of Gadhafi and his sons from power. Any result short of that guarantees a divided Libya that may well require international peacekeepers to separate the warring factions. If theres any leader whose terrorist nature the American people understand it is Gadhafi. Rather than predict doom for the Libyan exercise Republicans should insist that Gadhafi must go for it to be successful.
Republicans also have a chanceand for GOP Presidential candidates the obligationto put Libya in the context of the larger changes in the Middle East. One reason to intervene in Libya is to show the Assads and Ahmadinejads that the West is willing and able to act against tyrants who slaughter their own people and foment terrorism. Hillary Clintons weekend howler that Syrias Bashar Assad is different from Gadhafi because he is a reformer is the kind of thinking that deserves rebuttal if not ridicule.
The credibility of U.S. power is essential to maintaining our influence in a Middle East that is erupting in popular revolt against decades of injustice. The U.S. should be working actively to influence events so that the Middle East that emerges is freer and less hostile to American purposes. Yet our sense is that President Obama has been needlessly and perhaps dangerously passive in the face of this major strategic upheaval. Republicans should challenge Mr. Obama on the subject of U.S. leadership especially in the Middle East.
We understand the instinctive mistrust of this most political of Presidents a man whose every decision now is rooted in his desire for re-election. This is not a President who leads from the fronton the budget or on Libya. But that doesnt mean that Republicans should wash their hands of American global leadership. Their opportunity is to make the case for what American leadership should look like.
