At Saturday's Democratic debate, ABC News host Martha Raddatz asked Hillary Clinton about the U.S. intervention in Libya, a military campaign Clinton supported as secretary of state, calling it "smart power at its best." So, Raddatz asked pointedly, "how much responsibility do you bear for the chaos that followed those elections?" Clinton said that the entire region has become unstable because of the fallout of the Arab Spring and recruitment by the Islamic State, and that after the coalition toppled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, Libya tried to vote in moderates but they didn't have the right ideas and power to bring stability.
"We offered a lot more than they were willing to take," Clinton said. If the U.S. was not going to send in troops — and that was never on the table — then there was only so much the U.S. government could do, she said. "Were mistakes made?" Raddatz asked. Of course, Clinton said, in foreign interventions there always are. Raddatz turned to Sen. Bernie Sanders. "The secretary is right" that Libya is a complicated situation, Sanders said. But intervention has unintended consequences, he added. "I'm not quite the fan of regime change that I believe she is."
Martin O'Malley similarly criticized the Libya bombing campaign, suggesting that "our lust for regime change" got the better of America's judgment. Then he alluded to the terrorist attack in Benghazi that Republicans have been attacking Clinton over for three years. The U.S. needs better human intelligence, O'Malley added. That's what Ambassador Chris Stevens was trying to do, he said, but without the necessary support.
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