by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n
Almost everything we have been told about\u00a0Libya\u00a0over the last two years is untrue.<\/p>\n
A free\u00a0Libya\u00a0was supposed to be proof of President Obama’s enlightened reset\u00a0Middle East\u00a0policy. When insurgency broke out there,\u00a0the United States\u00a0joined\u00a0France\u00a0and\u00a0Great Britain\u00a0in bombing\u00a0Muammar Gadhafi\u00a0out of power \u2014 and supposedly empowering a democratic Arab Spring. Not a single American life was lost.<\/p>\n
Libyans, like most in the Arab World, were supposed to appreciate the new, enlightened American foreign policy. Obama’s\u00a0June 2009 Cairo\u00a0speech had praised Islam and apologized for the West. A new “lead from behind” multilateralism was said to have superseded\u00a0George W. Bush’s\u00a0neo-imperialist interventions of the past.<\/p>\n
Obama’s mixed-racial identity and his father’s Muslim heritage would also win over the hearts and minds of Libyans after the Gadhafi nightmare. During this summer’s Democratic convention, Obama supporters trumpeted the successes of his Middle East\u00a0policy:\u00a0Osama bin Laden\u00a0dead, al Qaeda defanged and Arab Spring reformers in place of dictators.<\/p>\n
To keep that shining message viable until the November election, the Obama administration and the media had been willing to overlook or mischaracterize all sorts of disturbing events. We had asked for a\u00a0United Nations\u00a0resolution for humanitarian aid and a no-fly zone to intervene in\u00a0Libya, but then deliberately exceeded it by bombing Gadhafi’s forces \u2014 after bypassing the\u00a0US Congress\u00a0in favor of a go-ahead from the\u00a0Arab League.<\/p>\n
Libya\u00a0was not so much liberated as descending into the chaos of tribal payback. Former Gadhafi supporters and African mercenaries were executed by those we helped. Islamists began consolidating power, desecrating a British military cemetery and driving out Westerners.<\/p>\n
On the 11th anniversary of 9\/11, a radical Islamist hit team with heavy weapons stormed the American consulate in Benghazi, killing Ambassador\u00a0Chris Stevens\u00a0and three other Americans.<\/p>\n
In response,\u00a0White House Press\u00a0Secretary\u00a0Jay Carney, National Intelligence Director\u00a0James Clapper\u00a0and UN Ambassador\u00a0Susan Rice\u00a0desperately insisted that the murders were a one-time,\u00a0ad hoc<\/em>\u00a0demonstration gone awry, without much larger significance. Supposedly, a few Muslim outliers \u2014 inflamed over one American’s anti-Islamic Internet video \u2014 had overreacted and stormed the consulate. Such anger was “natural,” assured the president.<\/p>\n But why would furor over an obscure, months-old internet video just happen to coincide with the 9\/11 anniversary attack? Do demonstrators customarily bring along rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and heavy machine guns? Why did the Libyan government attribute the killings to an al-Qaeda affiliate when the Obama administration would not?<\/p>\n Forget those questions: For most of September, desperate administration officials still clung to the myth that the Libyan catastrophe was a result of a single obnoxious video. At\u00a0the United Nations, the president castigated the uncouth film. Secretary of State\u00a0Hillary Clinton\u00a0lamented the senseless spontaneous violence that grew out of one American’s excesses, as she spoke beside the returning coffins of the slain Americans.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, more disturbing facts kept emerging: Ambassador Stevens repeatedly had warned his\u00a0State Department superiors in vain of impending Islamist violence. Security personnel \u2014 to no avail \u2014 had also urged beefing up the protection of the consulate, prompting former regional security officer\u00a0Eric Nordstrom\u00a0to say in exasperation that “the Taliban is on the inside of the building.” Video of the attack revealed that there had been no demonstration at all, but rather a full-fledged terrorist assault.<\/p>\n Even as the fantasy of a spur-of-the-moment demonstration dissipated, administration officials tried to salvage it \u2014 and with it their idealistic policy in the\u00a0Middle East. Vice President\u00a0Joe Biden\u00a0told a flat-out whopper in last week’s debate, saying the administration hadn’t been informed that Americans in\u00a0Libya\u00a0had ever requested more security. He scapegoated the intelligence agencies for supposedly failing to warn the administration of the threat.<\/p>\n The new administration narrative faulted not one video, but the intelligence community for misleading them about the threat of an al-Qaeda hit on an American consulate \u2014 and the Romney campaign for demanding answers about a slain ambassador and his associates. Meanwhile, the\u00a0State Department, the Obama re-election team and the intelligence community were all pointing fingers at each other.<\/p>\n What the Obama administration could not concede was the truth: The lead-from-behind intervention in\u00a0Libya\u00a0had proved a blueprint for nothing.\u00a0Libya\u00a0has descended into chaos. Radical Islam had either subverted or hijacked the Arab Spring. Al Qaeda was not dismantled by the death of bin Laden or by the stepped-up drone assassination missions in\u00a0Pakistan. Egypt\u00a0was becoming Islamist;\u00a0Syria\u00a0was a bloody mess.\u00a0Iran\u00a0was on the way to becoming nuclear. Obama had won America no more good will in the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0than had prior presidents.<\/p>\n In other words, the administration’s entire experience in\u00a0Libya\u00a0\u2014 and in most of the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0in general \u2014 has been a bright and shining lie.<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Tribune Media Services<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Almost everything we have been told about\u00a0Libya\u00a0over the last two years is untrue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[159],"tags":[1051,119,12,173,186,1048,110,1016],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-6c","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2527,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-dumb-and-dumber-war-in-libya\/","url_meta":{"origin":384,"position":0},"title":"A Dumb and Dumber War in Libya","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Almost daily over the last four months we were told that Muammar Gadhafi was about ready to throw in the towel and give up. Libya, after all, is not a distant Afghanistan or Iraq with a population of some 30 million. Yet this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2022,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-middle-east-mess-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":384,"position":1},"title":"The Middle East Mess","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media Libya, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and the All the Same Old, Same Old Mess Each country in the Middle East poses unique challenges. That said, gender apartheid, religious intolerance, tribalism, dictatorship, statism, and lack of transparency and free expression are widely shared in the region,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Punditry"","block_context":{"text":"Punditry","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/punditry\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":440,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/middle-east-madness\/","url_meta":{"origin":384,"position":2},"title":"Middle East Madness","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Last week, Muslim mobs took to the streets to murder the American ambassador in Libya and three of his staffers. American embassies were attacked from Egypt to Yemen. Embarrassed White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3355,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/did-we-give-up-on-libya\/","url_meta":{"origin":384,"position":3},"title":"Did We Give Up on Libya?","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services President Obama has announced that America would stop attacking Col. Muammar Gadhafi's forces in Libya. He instead hopes that others can force out Gadhafi \u2014 or that the dictator will leave through economic and diplomatic pressure. It will apparently be up to NATO\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Libya"","block_context":{"text":"Libya","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/libya\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":388,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-return-of-the-angry-reader\/","url_meta":{"origin":384,"position":4},"title":"The Return of the Angry Reader","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers In response to a column on Libya one reader wrote: But Hanson's argument here is much bigger than the embassy killings. Except, I'm not entirely clear what the thesis is. Is he saying it was a mistake to go into Libya? Is he saying\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":734,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-badgood-idea-of-removing-assad\/","url_meta":{"origin":384,"position":5},"title":"The Bad\/Good Idea of Removing Assad","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Who could not despise the tottering Bashar al-Assad dictatorship in Syria? The Syrian strongman has killed some 10,000 protestors over the last year; thousands of Syrians are now refugees. The autocracy arms and aids the terrorist organization Hezbollah. 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