Who leads the war in Libya?

The international coalition against the Qaddafi regime is both leaderless and rudderless, said Stefan Kornelius in the Munich Süddeutsche Zeitung. President Obama has made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want the U.S. to continue commanding military operations in Libya, and that’s completely “understandable.” With two other wars going on in Muslim countries, “America is the last nation that should intervene” in the Arab uprisings. But when the U.S. hands off to NATO this week, after having done most of the work to set up a no-fly zone over Libya, “a leadership vacuum will open.”

Europe clearly isn’t up to the task, said Thorsten Knuf in the Frankfurter Rundschau. Germany “stabbed its allies in the back” by abstaining from the vote on the U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force in Libya, saying it was “not thought through.” Then Chancellor Angela Merkel pulled German warships out of NATO’s command. France, of course, is the loudest proponent of the no-fly zone, but it lacks the military capability and experience to run a coalition. With Europe’s two heavyweight countries in disagreement, now would be the ideal time for EU officials to step up and lead. But the EU president and foreign minister are both “colorless,” ineffective wafflers—thanks largely to France and Germany, which both wanted “servile bureaucrats in EU institutions so they could continue to project their own power.”

That’s why the Americans may end up stuck with the Libyan war after all, said Con Coughlin in the London Telegraph. Besides Germany, Turkey also opposes the war, and for obvious reasons. It has thousands of workers and billions of dollars worth of business in Libya, as well as a Muslim population that doesn’t want to see Westerners bombing Muslims. Even if they contribute no troops, Germany and Turkey, as NATO members, could insist on rules of engagement for NATO aircraft “that make it impossible” for the coalition to succeed. If that happens, Europe will have proved that it lacks the ability “to run a war of its own.” The U.S. will have to step up.

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What a headache for Obama, said Laure Mandeville in Paris’s Le Figaro. A “rational character who hates improvisation,” he was extremely reluctant to intervene in Libya and did so only after “strong pressure from the French and the British.” And now he is subjected to a “rain of criticism” from all sides at home. Hawks say he is “taking cover behind a divided coalition,” while doves fault him for rushing into war without consulting Congress. Obama’s countrymen don’t deserve him, said Christina Patterson in the London Independent. I, for one, still adore him. How refreshing to see a U.S. president actually take a moment to weigh the ramifications of military action. When he finally announced that the U.S. would be engaged, he sounded “like a man who knew that everyone was saying that he’d been dithering, but who thought that there were more important things in life than whether people thought you were dithering.” Hearing him speak so soberly, “I realized that, in spite of everything, my love still burned bright.”