Someone overseas posted this clever comment on Facebook after America unleashed its cruise missiles in Operation Odyssey Dawn last weekend on the orders of Barack Obama. The Economist writes, "To people all over the world, it has come as a shock that this of all presidents, the man who always opposed George W. Bush’s 'dumb' invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003, should have plunged the United States into a war of his own against Colonel Muammar Qaddafi of Libya."
I've said this before. It is remarkable how so many people have so little understanding of Barack Hussein Obama (or "Barry" to his closest friends and "Mr. President" to everybody else). Perhaps just as remarkable, few seem interested in trying. The reasons are at once profound and complicated – and could fill a book.
At the heart of it, though, I suspect people prefer a benevolent enigma. As such, folks cling to Obama's obvious promise because, for them, he is a comforting vessel for their hopes, dreams and aspirations for a better world. To many, he is transformational, and yet a continuum of the towering talent and virtue that harkens back to America’s Founders. Acknowledging Obama as he actually is – a cunning, FDR-like pragmatist – means disrupting the idealized version that is held in the popular imagination. Hence, the shock when Obama, the mere mortal, behaves in a fashion that would impress Machiavelli in the pursuit of his real world goals.
To hear his words, spoken or written, is to know him. His intervention in Libya, however reluctant, should come as no shock. To those listening, his war views have been consistent. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Obama said, “We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations – acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. [...] I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. [...] To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”
At the time, Obama was not thinking Libya. But I see no contradiction between Operation Odyssey Dawn and his words. Neither should the world.
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