|
|
|
Jewish World Review Feb. 28, 2011 / 24 Adar I, 5771 Obama looks to Europe to take principal role in Libyan crisis By Paul Richter and David S. Cloud
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
(MCT)
Despite growing calls in the U.S. for action, the Obama administration is carefully limiting the American role in the unfolding international effort to halt the killing of Libyan demonstrators by dictator Moammar Gadhafi's regime.
U.S. officials have been pushing European countries to take the lead in world powers' response to Gadhafi, arguing that the Europeans have closer ties and more leverage. U.S. officials also want to limit military involvement in what could be a protracted civil war, coming at a time when U.S. forces are overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"This is predominately a European problem, in the sense that they are the ones who have the most at stake," said a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive diplomacy.
U.S. officials have been working for days with European officials, including at the United Nations Security Council, to prepare multilateral and unilateral sanctions against the regime. These include freezes on the leadership's financial assets, an arms embargo and travel restrictions, as well as possible recommendations for war crimes charges in the International Criminal Court.
The White House on Friday announced plans to impose unspecified U.S. sanctions on Gadhafi, and for the first time singled out Gadhafi personally for criticism.
Gadhafi "is overseeing the brutal treatment of his people … and his legitimacy has been reduced to zero in the eyes of his people," said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary.
U.S. officials had avoided comments about Gadhafi while hundreds of American diplomats and other citizens were in Libya. But Washington sharpened its language Friday after about 300 diplomats and other Americans left the country on a ferry, and the State Department temporarily closed down the embassy.
Edward S. Walker Jr., a former top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, said the administration had to be cautious since Gadhafi's security forces had sacked and burned the U.S. embassy in Tripoli in 1979, at the time of the Iranian revolution. U.S. citizens "escaped by the skin of their teeth," he recalled.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". HUNDREDS of columnists and cartoonists regularly appear. Sign up for the daily update. It's free. Just click here.
Reports of the deaths of hundreds of Libyan protesters have brought increasing calls for U.S. intervention. A group of 41 former U.S. officials, human rights activists and others sent a letter to President Barack Obama on Friday warning that "we may be on the threshold of a moral and humanitarian catastrophe," and urged the U.S. and allies to lay plans for a variety of steps, including a halt to Libyan oil imports and establishment of a no-fly zone in Libya.
Omar Khattaly, a Libyan-American and spokesman for the Libyan Working Group, said he understood the desire to have Europeans take the principal role, but believed the U.S. also should make a major effort.
"In this situation, you need help from the superpower," he said.
The U.S. sanctions will take months to produce results and are not likely to affect the bloody clashes between Gadhafi's forces and the demonstrators, most experts say.
The U.S. military's minimal role in the crisis has become noticeable in recent days as several European allies — Great Britain, France and Italy — sent their armed forces to evacuate citizens from Libya. Pentagon officials said they were not asked by the State Department to help in the evacuation of U.S. citizens.
The proximity of Libya to southern Europe is raising the fears of the Italian, French and other governments that the brutal violence will create a humanitarian crisis, with thousands of refugees making their way across the Mediterranean, U.S. officials said.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Friday after convening an emergency meeting on Libya that the priority should be on evacuation and on humanitarian assistance. He played down the possibility of a no-fly zone, calling it a "far-reaching approach" that could only be undertaken with U.N. approval.
Any U.S. military response to the crisis is likely to be as part of a larger NATO force and even then the U.S. is likely to play a supporting role, the senior U.S. official said.
In one visible sign that the Pentagon is not planning a major role in Libya in the near future, the only U.S. aircraft carrier in the region, the USS Enterprise, left the Mediterranean earlier this month and is now in the Indian Ocean.
Interested in a private Judaic studies instructor — for free? Let us know by clicking here.
Comment by clicking here.
| ||||||||||||||||
