3.27.11: It's Secretary Clinton's Time

As Mr. Gregory said at the top of today's program, we're nine days into the established no-fly over Libya, but what is the plan, the end game if you will, that Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) asked about in his interview with the moderator?

That's still the big question that needs to be answered, but our actions were clearly articulated by Secretary of State Clinton, who appeared with Defense Secretary Gates at the top of the program. Even though Secretary Gates said that Libya was not in the vital interest of the United States, which then Mr. Gregory took out of context the rest of the program, he went on to explain that is in our interest to assist with the U.N. resolution and to help our allies. Then Mrs. Clinton further explained that in Afghanistan, NATO troops (French and English) are there with us and we need to join with them in the Libyan operation because it is in their vital interest.

With Mr. Lugar, David Gregory brought up the cost of this operation and where the funds would come from to support it. This is the Republican's opportunity to play politics with our international policy and as Savannah Guthrie pointed out later during the round table that the main grievance is the process by which the President went about the operation. Frankly, we find Republican budget objections without substance, because they are selective when it comes to who gets it. Without too much digression, the corporate tax cuts that Republican state governors are doling out, while making cuts and increasing the burden on the middle class is the essentially the same as to what is happening at the federal level. The funding is there, but the Republicans, inexplicably, can not be seen aligning with the President on any measure, including foreign policy.

Mrs. Clinton, as she's apt to do, made another good point in that Libya borders Egypt and Tunisia, two countries going through their own revolutions. And here's where Libya is in the vital interest of the United States, to which the Madam Secretary alluded. Egypt is squarely in the United States vital security interest, and for that matter Israel's, and to have a mass slaughter where refugees would go pouring into that country would cause further destabilization in the region. Additionally, as the Secretary also mentioned, if the United States had stood by and did nothing, we would have been criticized that much more.

However, Tom Ricks, senior fellow for the Center for a New American Security, said it is sort of like 'give war a chance,' citing, extremely interestingly, Obama taking an Eisenhower type approach in that he should not get stuck in a conflict, but try and effect the outcome. But the anecdote Mr. Ricks described when rebels lined up to shake the hand of a downed American pilot and embraced him is very telling commentary on how President Obama, and, equally, Hillary Clinton are conducting American foreign policy in a more responsible manner, by world perceptions, than the Republicans could hope to do. And as Ted Koppel summarized, Republicans right now have the luxury and the wait and see what happens and then take a hard position.

Mr. Lugar did definitively say that we should not be involved in the Libyan civil war, and we would agree. That is a narrow slicing of a position - enable the rebels by bombing the dictator - is getting involved. But by not getting involved, the humanitarian would have been grave. Mr. Koppel reminded us of the 1982 protests in Syria where Assad killed approximately 80,000 people to suppress an uprising. Consensus would say that we can not allow that to happen again, especially now, with the African Union calling for change, the Arab League urging for this action, and with the aforementioned UN resolution. With this in mind, there is some insidiousness going go that we'll get to in a minute.

Savannah Guthrie called what happening in the Middle East the 'Arab Spring,' but Bob Woodward called this President Obama's '9/11.' Ms. Guthrie's terminology is hopeful, which is something we remain, but the realists we are here at the column would call this a cultural shift, the equivalent of a 9.0 earthquake. Mr. Woodward explained it as a huge management problem, the size and scope of 9/11, and factoring in the relief effort in Japan, and our own domestic troubles, it becomes much more than that. And again, to touch on our domestic troubles, Republican policy initiatives seem petty when set along aside what is going on in the world. Corporate tax cuts? Busting unions? Limiting women's rights? Cutting education? Going in the opposite direction on every one of those initiatives would actually strengthen our country and while the world outside of ours is experiencing seismic shifts, natural and man-made, it is what we need to do most right now.

So with Libya, it's day to day as Secretary Clinton described, and the President will explain it all to the country on Monday night. We can only hope that Mrs. Clinton has her hands all over the explanation. Mrs. Clinton has shown responsible leadership, the type in the air of our finest Secretaries of State, and we do not say that lightly. In simply hearing her and the Defense Secretary describe the scope of our responsibilities in the world, you realize the our domestic problems are quite solvable, don't you? And where's the responsible, reasonable leadership on that in the House of Representatives?

So we conclude that the United States' actions, though not desired, were responsible given the world consensus, and by no means should there be boots on the ground... unless those boots are special ops people or the CIA, which will be the case. However, we do like it when someone like Tom Ricks explains that there are tight restrictions on the military with close watch against 'mission creep,' which indeed connotes U.S. personnel in some aspect on the ground there.

Lastly, the insidiousness that we mentioned earlier is in regard to Saudia Arabia, possibly our most hypocritical, wrong-headed 'friendship' we have. What the Saudis are doing in Bahrain by sending troops in is reprehensible even though the Monarch there requested it, and adding to the disgust is that the United States, mainly, and everyone else aren't saying anything officially about it. It's all because of oil of course, which defines our two countries' relationship. And since, as Secretary Gates noted, we just recently sold them the largest amount of arms in their history, we should be leery as to how those weapons are used, which could eventually be against us. Now, we're not saying that we should cut ties with Saudi Arabia, and we do not think the relationship is 'ruptured' as it was termed on today's program. Ruptured would mean that the oil stops flowing to us, that's ruptured. But what we are saying is that the United States can no longer afford to have oil dominate the terms of the relationship. That's on us and eliminating foreign sources of energy. That is our vital national security interest.

Panel: The Washington Post's Bob Woodward; the BBC's Ted Koppel; senior fellow for the Center for a New American Security and author, Tom Ricks; and NBC News White House Correspondent, Savannah Guthrie.