US REACTION:PRESIDENT BARACK Obama is grappling with conflicting advice from domestic advisers and opponents, as well as international leaders, as he attempts to formulate a response to the Libyan uprising.
A proposed “no-fly” zone is the stickiest issue. In a telephone call with David Cameron yesterday, Mr Obama and the British prime minister “agreed to press forward with planning, including at Nato, on the full spectrum of possible responses, including . . . a no-fly zone,” the White House said.
A UN Security Council resolution drafted by Britain and France to impose a no-fly zone could come up for debate this week.
Libya’s ambassador to the UN, a spokesman for the rebels and the six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council have all requested such an interdiction zone.
China and Russia are believed to oppose a no-fly zone on the grounds it would constitute interference in Libya’s domestic affairs. They agreed to a resolution imposing sanctions on Col Gadafy’s regime on February 26th only at the insistence of African and Arab nations.
In the US, the most influential voice calling for a no-fly zone is Senator John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee and an ally of Mr Obama.
Mr Kerry has asked the administration to “crater” Libyan airstrips so that Col Gadafy’s aircraft cannot use them. Libyan attack aircraft reportedly launched at least five airstrikes against rebels yesterday.
Mr Kerry has warned Mr Obama against “showing reticence in a huge public way”. He told the New York Times that he was haunted by George HW Bush’s “betrayal” of Iraqi Shia Muslims and Kurds in 1991.
The then president exhorted Iraqis to rise up against Saddam Hussein, then allowed them to be slaughtered by Saddam’s helicopter gunships.
Likewise, Mr Kerry said, former president Bill Clinton failed to intervene to prevent the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and was then too slow to react to Serb massacres of Bosnian Muslims.
“You want to be prepared if he is bombing people, and killing his own people,” Mr Kerry said of Col Gadafy.
Libyans “look defenceless and we would look feckless – you have to be ready”.
Mr Obama is receiving equally strong but contrary advice from his defence secretary, Robert Gates. Mr Gates told Congress last week that establishing a no-fly zone would require missile strikes to wipe out Col Gadafy’s air defence system – an act of war on a sovereign nation.
Mr Gates spoke of a prolonged operation over all of Libya, and warned that the US is already overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Opponents of US military intervention also say it would look bad for the US to attack yet another Muslim country, however good its intentions.
Bill Daley, Mr Obama’s chief of staff, said on March 6th that “lots of people throw around phrases like ‘no-fly zone’ – they talk about it as though it’s just a video game”.
Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman have been the strongest advocates of US military intervention in Libya. Mr McCain portrays Mr Obama as indecisive and weak.
The Republican presidential hopeful and former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich said: “The idea we are confused about a man who has been an anti-American dictator since 1969 tells you how inept this administration is.”