As of 10 a.m. EST on October 20, 2011 –
Muammar Gaddafi is dead. His death has not been confirmed by American news
sources, NATO or the White House, but the BBC and Libya’s National Transitional
Council have confirmed Gaddafi's death. Whether Gaddafi died in a NATO-led air
strike or in a gun battle with rebel forces is at issue; ultimately, Gaddafi is
dead as a direct result of American and Western European military action.
The question now pivots, as every news
story does during a presidential election cycle, to domestic politics. How does
the death of Gaddafi impact American presidential politics? Well, Gaddafi’s
death represents the unofficial fulfillment of NATO’s mission in Libya. This is
unlikely to mean the end of combat operations in theater, but it does represent
a victory for President Obama. However, it is a victory he is unlikely to be
able to exploit.
In March, when the Arab Spring was
ramping up and violence had engulfed the nations of North Africa, reports
surfaced that Obama’s foreign policy advisor and advocate of the “right to
protect” principle, Samantha Power, was the principle advocate for intervention
in Libya. A Libyan campaign would serve as a test case to advance “R2P,” a
theoretical and academic casus belli
which would justify military intervention in nations where there was no direct
link to national security but where civilians were in jeopardy. The relative
success of the Libyan mission may eventually serve as the most-cited military
adventure which justifies similar interventions in the future. The qualifier “may”
is necessary in this case because Libya is only a success if successor government
in Libya ends up being more pro-Western than the one it replaces. Time will
tell but, judging from post-Mubarak events in Egypt, that outcome is certainly in
doubt.
As far as domestic politics, this is a
significant victory for President Obama and it is likely that his job approval
polls in coming months will experience a short-lived bounce (just as they did
after the death of Osama bin Laden in May). 2012 will not be a national
security election, barring some unforeseen major international crisis or, God
forbid, a successful terror attack. Foreign policy successes or failures will
be a tertiary issue in the upcoming presidential elections making his
successes or failures abroad mostly moot. Obama’s job
approval on international affairs and terrorism is already above 52
percent following the drone strike in Yemen that killed Al Qaeda operative
Anwar Al-Awlaki. Unfortunately for the president, he is hamstrung on this issue—he cannot
campaign on his success in the War on Terror.
What’s the “War on Terror,” you say?
Exactly. The president campaigned explicitly in 2008 as the antithesis of
President Bush and was clear in his opposition to nearly all aspects of the
Republican president’s prosecution of the conflicts that followed the 9/11
terror attacks. President Obama proceeded to enshrine nearly every tactic candidate Obama criticized on the campaign trail. As one of the most anti-war Senators during the Bush Administration, Obama’s opposition to Bush’s tactics
were exposed as purely political after he took office.
Guantanamo Bay remains open and is doing
bumper business. Osama bin Laden was killed on site without so much as having
his Miranda rights read to him, and an American citizen tied to Al Qaeda was
killed from the sky—both of these events occurred on the soil of a foreign entity
with which we have diplomatic relations. Finally, Obama successfully opened an entirely
new theater in an Arab nation with the explicit purpose of deposing a murderous
dictator. To campaign on these successes in 2012 having campaigned on the
precise opposite premise in 2008 would be seen as the height of hypocrisy and would
do him no good among independent voters.
Obama’s surrogates will do their best
to campaign on the president's successes in the prosecution of the war on terror—the president's senior political adviser David Axelrod recently appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning
Joe” and, when asked if the president was not prepared for the job in 2008,
responded that they should ask Osama bin Laden that question.
"So when you say he wasn't prepared, maybe you should go
ask Osama bin Laden if he thought he was prepared,” said Axelrod.
The voters are aware of the president’s successes and that could be a boon, but
the president himself is completely unable to campaign on those issues without
exposing himself to criticism for his nakedly political opposition to precisely the same tactics under President Bush.
Nevertheless, Obama’s foreign policy successes are a net benefit
to his electoral chances. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are perfectly
happy with the prosecution of the War on Terror. The progressive
base will grumble but on Election Day they have nowhere else to go. Whether
the most aggressive liberals show up to the polls in 2012 is unclear, but the
Democratic base will rally against the Republican candidate as they always do.
In all, Obama’s successful prosecution of the War on Terror is
a boost to his embattled presidency. If he had not shortsightedly campaigned
against Bush’s methods and then employed nearly every one as president himself,
he could talk up his successes. Unfortunately for him, the president has to stay mum or
be exposed as a hypocrite.
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