What Happened to National Interest?

President Obama has entered a perplexing stage of his Presidency. For someone who campaigned so vociferously against military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, it leaves one scratching his or her head trying to figure out what he is doing in Libya.
Aside from that, what are the reasons for taking military action these days? Such reasons should never change, as principle is something that does not change. The principle of national interest has not been addressed by President Obama. What is our national interest? It would be wise for the President to spell it out clearly to the American people, and indeed to Congress.

Our country certainly has an interest in seeing Qadaffi go and in Libya becoming a free, democratic capitalism that is friendly to the west. This may be pie in the sky, but any Islamic nation that embraces democracy, freedom and capitalism is likely going to be good for the United States. Gaining an ally in a rough neighborhood would certainly bring us many benefits.

Rather than be direct about our interests, the President is telling us that Qadaffi is “unfit to serve” and that we need to protect the innocent people of Libya from Qadaffi’s attacks on them. As we do this, shouldn’t we know what the final objective is? Is it to “protect” them indefinitely? To what end? Please, tell us.

And telling Congress wouldn’t be a bad idea either, especially coming from a President who bragged about how this administration would be the most open administration ever.

It is further problematic that Vice President Joe Biden, while campaigning in 2007, stated that if then President Bush “takes this nation to war in Iran without congressional approval, I will make it my business to impeach him.” I’m certainly not advocating impeachment or even kicking the word around irresponsibly like Biden did, but this all sounds so strange. Is this the same Obama and Biden we saw during their campaigns?

Then of course there is the prosecution of this war. Excuse me, not war, the enforcement of the no-fly zone. We are clearly the biggest, most powerful member of the coalition, yet we want to cede control to someone else? Why? Because the President is apparently more concerned with appearances than with getting a job done correctly.

It was also his obsession with appearances that has leap-frogged our national interest. To put it politely, the President wanted to make certain we didn’t offend the Chinese and Russians when obtaining vague permission from the UN to take action in Libya. In reality, President Obama essentially allowed China and Russia to be the gateway to pursuing our national interest, however ill-defined that currently is by the President.

Not defining our national interest clearly enough, ceding control to a committee, allowing other countries hostile to freedom and democracy to control how we go about pursuing our interests and not consulting directly with Congress all bode poorly for a start to this war, er, no fly zone enforcement and possible support to rebels campaign.