White House: Obama method for regime change better than Bush method

Posted By Josh Rogin Wednesday, August 24, 2011 - 2:36 PM Share

This week's toppling of the Qaddafi regime in Libya shows that the Obama administration's multilateral and light-footprint approach to regime change is more effective than the troop-heavy occupation-style approach used by the George W. Bush administration in Iraq and Afghanistan, a top White House official told Foreign Policy today in a wide-ranging interview.

"The fact that it is Libyans marching into Tripoli not only provides a basis of legitimacy for this but also will provide contrast to situations when the foreign government is the occupier," said Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor for communications, in an exclusive interview on Wednesday with FP. "While there will be huge challenges ahead, one of the positive aspects here is that the Libyans are the ones who are undertaking the regime change and the ones leading the transition."

Despite criticism from Congress and elsewhere, President Barack Obama's strategy for the military intervention in Libya will not only result in a better outcome in Libya but also will form the basis of Obama's preferred model for any future military interventions, Rhodes said.

"There are two principles that the president stressed at the outset [of the Libya intervention] that have borne out in our approach. The first is that we believe that it's far more legitimate and effective for regime change to be pursued by an indigenous political movement than by the United States or foreign powers," said Rhodes. "Secondly, we put an emphasis on burden sharing, so that the U.S. wasn't bearing the brunt of the burden and so that you had not just international support for the effort, but also meaningful international contributions."

Rhodes said that the United States is not going to be able to replicate the exact same approach to intervention in other countries, but identified the two core principles of relying on indigenous forces and burden sharing as "characteristics of how the president approaches foreign policy and military intervention."

Rhodes also weighed in on several other aspects of the Libya saga:

  • Rhodes confirmed the comments by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice on Tuesday that the TNC can choose whether to prosecute Muammar al-Qaddafi themselves or hand him over to the International Criminal Court, which has indicted him on war crimes. ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, however, has argued that the decision is not up to the Libyans.
  • "We believe it's something that the Libyans and the [Transitional National Coalition], were they to capture Qaddafi, would then be in charge of, in consultation with the ICC," said Rhodes. "Were he to go to any third country, they would have an obligation to turn him over to the ICC."
  • On the role of the NATO operation in Libya, Rhodes said the civilian protection mission continues but that consultation will soon begin in Brussels on the conclusion of the mission. The need for the NATO protection mission is still present for now, Rhodes said, but the White House doesn't anticipate the TNC requesting a peacekeeping force from NATO or the United Nations that involves any foreign boots on the ground. "There's no plan for that type of effort," he said.
  • Rhodes said the drive to release between $1 billion and $1.5 billion of Qaddafi's frozen assets to the TNC is moving along quickly. "We think that should be complete in the next few days and we don't foresee an insurmountable problem there," he said. The Obama administration feels confident the TNC can manage the money and prevent it from being stolen or funneled to unsavory actors. The administration will also try to ensure the money goes to the urgent needs identified by the TNC.
  • Rhodes also addressed the effects the developments in Libya may have on Syria, saying that "it sends a message to Damascus that a crackdown of the sort that Qaddafi and [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad have pursued is not a means of maintaining legitimacy and staying in power in the long run."
  • Rhodes said that a transition to democracy in Syria is in the U.S. national interest, and would weaken Iran's ability to influence regional events. "The Iranians have suggested that the Arab Spring was somehow a positive development for Tehran, the fact you see their principal ally in the region having completely lost legitimacy... would be a blow to Iran," he said. But he emphasized that the administration does not see a military intervention in Syria as the right step.
  • On the fate of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi, who senior lawmakers and GOP presidential candidates said on Tuesday should be re-arrested and extradited to the United States, Rhodes said the extradition issue was a legal question for the Justice Department, "but the president never thought he should have been released in the first place ... so that continues to be our view."

EXPLORE:FLASH POINTS, ARAB WORLD, MIDDLE EAST, NORTH AFRICA, AFGHANISTAN, BUSH ADMINISTRATION, DEMOCRACY, DIPLOMACY, IRAN, IRAQ, LIBYA, MILITARY, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, OBAMA'S LIBYA SPEECH, STATE DEPARTMENT, U.S. CONGRESS, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY, UNITED NATIONS
 

ZATHRAS

7:14 PM ET

August 24, 2011

Deputy National Security Adviser for Communications?

Oh, for God's sake. The man's a speechwriter. Unless Rogin aspires to be a stenographer, he might just call him that.

Having one of your speechwriters brief the press on an important foreign policy development is not obviously superior to using someone with actual responsibility -- say, the Secretary of State -- for that purpose. I suppose if the briefing amounts to declaring "mission accomplished," as in this case, a responsible official might prefer to have the briefing done by someone far enough down the food chain that his quotes could be disavowed later if things in Libya started to go badly.

Wherever the decision to put the Deputy National Security Adviser for Speechwriting front and center as the foreign policy voice of the administration came from, let's take note of one thing, just in case it becomes important later. Libya is a one-off. It doesn't resemble the approach used by the Obama administration in Afghanistan, or again the way Obama and his team responded to the unrest in Iran after the disputed election two years ago. It resembles the administration's response to Egypt and Syria only to the extent that the administration reacted to unexpected events in all three cases. The journalistic herd is being easily guided now into talking up a new "doctrine" and "strategic approach," but it has been as easily manipulated before.

 

MUSE

11:34 PM ET

August 24, 2011

Dominique Strauss-Kahn: left without honour

The dismissal of the case against Mr Strauss-Kahn does not justify the tone of vindication from many French Socialists
The sexual assault prosecution of Dominique Strauss-Kahn had not even been dropped before the French Socialist party celebrations began. Martine Aubry, who may be the party's candidate against Nicolas Sarkozy in nine months' time, described the New York court's decision as an "immense relief" and declared that "we were all waiting for this, for him to finally be able to get out of this nightmare". François Hollande, Mme Aubry's main rival, agreed that "a man with the abilities of Dominique Strauss-Kahn can be useful". And Harlem Désir, the party's interim general secretary, expressed satisfaction at a "happy outcome".

What kind of world do these leaders of the Socialist party live in? No one who reads the original prosecution complaint against Mr Strauss-Kahn and the New York prosecutors' 25-page request for the case to be dismissed could possibly make such reckless remarks. Yesterday's dismissal did not find that no sexual encounter occurred between the ex-head of the IMF and the hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo. There was reliable forensic evidence of a real and rapid encounter, and Ms Diallo quickly reported the incident. The case ended because it had become a "he-said-she-said" dispute and because Ms Diallo's reliability as a witness had collapsed. As the prosecutors put it: "The nature and number of the complainant's falsehoods leave us unable to credit her version of events beyond a reasonable doubt, whatever the truth may be about the encounter between the complainant and the defendant." The outcome, as so often in rape cases, should cause not "immense relief" but immense unease.

To drop the case against Mr Strauss-Kahn was nevertheless the right legal decision. But it does not justify the wholly inappropriate tone of vindication expressed by so many French Socialists and it does not justify the tendency of so much of the French governing class to debate the DSK affair as a purely political event devoid of moral content. Mr Strauss-Kahn is entitled to the presumption of innocence, but he has not been exonerated, as a commentator on French television falsely claimed last night. He has been freed on a technicality, albeit a vital one.

Mr Strauss-Kahn's modernising roles in the often difficult debates in the post-Mitterrand Socialist party and, more recently, his work as an innovative head of the IMF in crucial times deserve real credit. But his public career is over. It should not be resuscitated. He cannot again command the respect required by a senior minister, let alone a head of state. One Berlusconi is enough. A rehabilitation of Mr Strauss-Kahn would dishonour the French left. The Socialist party has enough problems without humiliating itself in such a disturbing manner

 

BDL2010

5:30 AM ET

August 25, 2011

It's only been ten years but...

Maybe they forgot that Afghanistan was a light foot print and it represented a new doctrine calling for limited use of conventional forces and reliance on native forces (Northern Alliance) working with SOF. Once the Taliban fell it was necessary to put in a large number of conventional forces. This too may have to happen in Libya in the form of UN advisors and peacekeepers.

Iraq was also a light footprint and a fast campaign. But we paid for this once the regime was gone and order had to be restored. Basically we failed to gain the peace. The reason: Too few troops to restore order and begin redevelopment and government functions.

The current administration also conducted a surge in Afghanistan. So I am not sure what point they are trying to make other than scoring political points.

When are we going to get a foreign policy and national security strategy that transcends party politics?

 

GORDONCAIN

10:23 AM ET

August 25, 2011

Bidsget

I just paid $22.87 for an iPad2-64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $675 which only cost me $62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, BidsGet.com

 

MSMII

6:05 PM ET

September 12, 2011

Apeasement

The foreign policy of practice for this adminitsration is clearly appeasement and apologetics. Neither of which have worked in history. These policies lead to expansionist policies by our enemies. What comes to my mind when I think about Iranian expansion is Hezbollah, IRCS, support of terrorism, and a staunch opposing view towards America. Ahmedinijad is easily one of the more pressing threats America faces for the near to midterm as Iran expands its presence in Ecuador, Venezuela, and Cuba.
http://msmignoresit.blogspot.com/2011/09/iranian-expansion.html

 

John Hudson reports on national security and foreign policy from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom, the White House to Embassy Row, for The Cable.

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