led attacks against oil-rich Libya have opened the Obama administration to questions about why it's holding back from more robust support for opposition forces challenging other rulers. What is the difference, some have asked, between the situation in Libya and the uprisings in Bahrain, Yemen, Syria and even sub-Saharan African nations such as Ivory Coast? The bombardment by Washington and its allies of the air defenses and troops of Muammar Gaddafi was motivated by a desire to prevent a possible slaughter of rebels fighting to end his erratic 42-year reign. There's hope among US and allied leaders that the anti-government forces will move toward democracy as they appear to be after revolutions in neighboring Egypt and Tunisia. But the military intervention begs many questions and illustrates once again the stark inconsistences in an American foreign policy that tries to balance democratic ideals against pragmatic national interests. The easy but unsatisfactory answer is that the United Nations called for action against Libya as did that nation's neighbors in the Arab League. And the UN also is already deeply involved in Ivory Coast, where the internationally recognized president is calling for UN peacekeepers to use force against incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo, who has attacked civilians and refuses to cede power. Mark Quarterman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Obama was engaged in the “art of the possible” in Libya. “The ability to reach a consensus on action in Libya, in the face of potential crimes against humanity,” he said in a recent commentary, “is not illegitimate simply because a similar consensus cannot be reached in other circumstances.” Nicholas R. Burns, a Harvard professor who was in the upper reaches of State Department decision-making for much of the past two decades, said Obama had no choice. “With Benghazi being overrun by Gaddafi, the president had to use force,” he said. “It has been done effectively. It saved those people and gave new life to the rebels.” But why not act on behalf of anti-government forces that have come under attack as they challenge entrenched leaders elsewhere? “We can't be antiseptically consistent,” Burns said. Obama has worked assiduously since taking office to repair the US image in the world, an image that was badly damaged by Washington's invasion of Iraq and its long war to defeat the Taliban militancy and its Al-Qaeda allies in Afghanistan and in the border region with Pakistan. As he stepped into the Libyan conflict in a major way, Obama was eager to keep America's profile as low as possible. He has routinely said that the operation in Libya would soon be ceded to NATO control. The White House has no interest in attaching itself deeply to yet another conflict in a Muslim country. That's easier said than done.
