President Barack Obama is treading carefully through the crisis in Libya and trying to avoid inflaming a situation that has repercussions for the US economy and ultimately, perhaps, even his own reelection bid. Unlike the tumultuous events in Egypt, where Obama frequently called for a transition in power away from Hosni Mubarak, Obama has largely adopted a more wait-and-see position in the case of Libya, drawing some criticism that he is being too reticent. Obama has been consulting with allies about sanctions and avoiding the kind of hot rhetoric that might antagonize unpredictable Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who has bedeviled American presidents for the past 20 years. Part of Obama's caution is driven by the need to ensure Americans are safely out of Libya and cannot be taken hostage, a problem that may have been on the verge of being solved Friday when a ferry carrying hundreds of Americans sailed for Malta. But Obama also does not want to make any moves that could further rattle oil markets and contribute to what has been a steady rise in gasoline prices in the United States. Some US commentators warn pump prices could easily reach $4 or $5 a gallon in the months ahead and put a pinch on a US economy still going through a fragile recovery, although administration officials play down this possibility. “If it became an issue here and you saw gas prices really increase, then that makes it a domestic issue of great importance,” said Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta. Obama for the past two years has battled Republican charges that he has not focused sufficiently on bringing down the country's stubbornly high 9 percent jobless rate, and the president is counting on an improving US economy to drive his reelection bid in 2012. That may be why he refused to budge from his economic “Winning the Future” message on a trip this week to Cleveland that took place when the crisis in Libya was reaching full boil. He gave a speech and talked at a roundtable and never addressed the situation in Libya. Presidential historian Thomas Alan Schwartz of Vanderbilt University said at this point Obama appears to have the support of Americans. “In a way the caution that the president is showing is a reflection of what the public is okay with,” he said. Some Republicans would like to see a more aggressive approach by the White House against the killings of Libyan protesters, including creation of a no-fly zone. And they worry about the potential rise of Islamists in the region in a way that would threaten staunch US ally Israel. Some Democrats also have been surprised by the muted tone of the White House response. But Obama, who ran for president in 2008 on opposition to the Iraq war and trying to end that conflict and one in Afghanistan, has plenty of reasons to be wary of bogging the country down in a new military effort.
