It really is about regime change in Libya

Ignore the president's hysterical critics. Obama's aim is to topple Gadhafi — and he knows the stakes are high

The commentary on the president’s course in Libya has been instinctively adversarial. Much of the press may be compensating for its cheerleading or supine acquiescence in the fraud of the Iraq War. So reporters chase administration officials around briefing rooms and TV studios, pressing questions that can’t be answered at all (about operational details), or can’t be answered candidly — for example, about the targeting of Moammar Gadhafi. On both sides, partisans join in — some Democrats apparently against any conflict anywhere — and Republicans who never questioned Bush, Cheney, or Rumsfeld, but somehow would scorn Obama even if he got Iran to surrender its nuclear weapons.

Having forged a genuine multilateralism on Libya and pulled off the miracle of no Chinese or Russian veto in the Security Council, the administration now has to speak diplomatically while wielding big missiles. But through the white noise of the media and political scrum, some truths ought to be clear even if Obama and company can’t clearly say them.

First, why did Obama dither?

He didn’t. He was waiting until conditions were right and perhaps hoping, at least at first, that the rebels would win on their own. The president did lean forward, announcing that Gadhafi had to go. John Kerry wrote an early op-ed advocating a no-fly zone.

Too much of the internal debate — and credit-claiming from insiders — ended up on the front pages. But all along Obama kept all options on the table. At about the time any prospect for unaided regime change was being rendered forlorn, the Arab League took the unprecedented step of asking for outside intervention. Now Obama could exercise the option of force without risking America’s standing — and vital interests — in the Middle East. Would that George W. Bush had dithered instead of dissembling America into a war where the first casualty was truth, and the toll is measured not only in lives and dollars, but in diminution of our moral authority and global influence.

Second, why engage in yet another conflict in a Muslim country — and can we afford it? This line of questioning is both superficial and hypocritical. Superficial because one bad war in Iraq and one badly fought war in Afghanistan don’t constitute a reason to reject action when and if it’s right in Libya. Hypocritical because complaining about the relatively modest cost of that action comes with ill grace from those in Congress who over the past decade didn’t care about spending a trillion dollars (and the total’s still climbing) on the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.