As Libya descends into a failed state — marked most recently by the beheadings of 21 Coptic Christians by jihadis — Democrats are beginning to question Hillary Rodham Clinton’s rush to war in the country, and one in particular, former Sen. Jim Webb, may make national security the focal point of a presidential campaign.
More than three years after Mrs. Clinton pushed for U.S. airstrikes to end Moammar Gadhafi’s four-decade-long autocracy, the country has been divided between two rival governments, each with its own military, and various tribal militias all competing for power.
As happened with Afghanistan in the 1990s, the chaos has provided Islamist terrorists with a perfect breeding ground to organize, with intelligence officials confirming late last year that jihadis have set up multiple training camps in eastern Libya.
In 2011 the NATO-led operation into Libya was heralded by both President Obama and Mrs. Clinton, who was then secretary of state, as a model for intervention. Both hoped that Gadhafi’s ouster would move the North African nation toward democracy, as President George W. Bush’s cabinet hoped the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would usher in a period of democracy and peace in Iraq.
But now even those who helped trumpet the international war cry at the time are beginning to question its merits.
“We’re in a period of real turbulence in Libya, with an on-the-ground, ongoing civil conflict between an internationally recognized government centered in Tobruk and an Islamist force centered in Tripoli,” said Adm. James Stavridis, who was NATO’s supreme allied commander during the conflict, in a Feb. 19 interview on CNN. “Dropped in the middle of this mix is a dose of [the] Islamic State. Bad combination, and clearly a period of great turbulence.”
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He added he still believes Libya will be better off in the long run without Gadhafi, but right now “this is a very dark period for Libya.”
America’s top counterintelligence official spoke similarly Thursday in an appearance on Capitol Hill, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that the collapse of authority has vaulted Libya into the position of most worrisome state in the region.
“There are, in addition to ISIL, probably six or eight other terrorist groups that have gathered in Libya,” said James R. Clapper, director of national intelligence, using an acronym for the Islamic State group, which is also known as ISIS. “So it’s a magnet because, essentially, it’s ungoverned.”
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii Democrat and an Iraq War veteran, has been a vocal critic of the U.S. intervention in Libya and the lack of cogent U.S. strategy in dealing with the rise of the Islamic State.
“Our policy went wrong when we took our eye off the true enemy, which is Islamic extremists, and put it on Gaddafi,” Ms. Gabbard told The Washington Times. “We should not have intervened in Libya and overthrown Gaddafi. The U.S. and the rest of the world are now paying for those mistakes. Unfortunately, too often, many of our leaders have not and do not look ahead and anticipate the consequences and effects of their actions and decisions.”
She added: “The root cause of these problems [the rise of the Islamic State] is that our leaders, after 9/11, lost sight of who the real enemy is, namely Islamic extremists. This lack of focus led the U.S. to engage in efforts to overthrow dictators and engage in nation-building.”
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Even former counterintelligence officials who served during the intervention are worried about the breakdown happening in Libya — and say at the heart of the problem was a lack of U.S. strategy after Gadhafi was toppled.
The rise of the Islamic State over the past few months highlights “the real security vacuum that we have in many of these places, and in Libya, that is really most obvious,” said Michael Leiter, who served as the director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center during the Libyan conflict.
Mr. Leiter stepped down from his position at the counterterror center in July 2011 — five months into the conflict.
“The breakdown of civil society and government authority in Libya since the fall of Gadhafi in 2011 has allowed, with a lack of security services, elements of ISIS associates — now three different groups in Libya — to really take charge and perpetrate these incredibly gruesome and horrific events,” he said this month in an interview with PBS News.
Even the Rev. Jesse Jackson blasted the U.S. role in Libya this month in an op-ed column he penned for the Chicago Sun-Times, questioning the validity of Mrs. Clinton’s argument for entering the war in the first place.
“The ’humanitarian intervention’ in Libya has left chaos and violence in its wake,” Mr. Jackson wrote in the article, which also questioned the wisdom of U.S. policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The left-leaning press, once supportive of Mrs. Clinton’s arguments for intervention, is also beginning to doubt the administration’s strategy behind the Libyan war, given the rise of the Islamic State in the region.
“The underlying message is that, regardless of the approach in the early stages of the engagement, how long and how committed does the international community stay in that process to make sure that the state does not collapse?” said NBC News correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin when questioned on MSNBC.
He answered his own question skeptically, saying Libya has become a failed state.
“What we saw in Libya is that, yes, there was a central government that was a dictatorship and certainly controlled the territory and the people underneath it. In the wake of the Arab uprising and the wake of that NATO liberation, if you will — or NATO campaign to help the rebels — there was a disengagement following that and following the Benghazi attack. They did not want to get involved. It was too dangerous perhaps. They wanted to see the central government kind of exert itself. That failed. And what we [see] in Libya now is a failed state.”
During the time of the Libya intervention, Mr. Webb, then a U.S. senator from Virginia, adamantly opposed the U.S. getting into the Libya conflict. Mr. Webb, who announced an exploratory presidential committee in November, has since given speeches highlighting his national security background, formerly serving as a Marine and as Navy secretary under President Ronald Reagan.
“It is not a healthy thing when the world’s dominant military and economic power has a policy based on vagueness,” Mr. Webb said in a speech at the National Press Club last year. “And so we ended up, and continue to be trapped, in the never-ending, ever-changing entanglements of the Middle East, beginning with the Pandora’s box that was opened with the invasion of Iraq and continuing through the illogical and still-fermenting nightmare of the Arab Spring, particularly our inadvisable actions in Libya.”
Mr. Webb declined The Times’ request for an interview.
Although a long shot as a presidential contender due to Mrs. Clinton’s brand name and establishment ties, Mr. Webb will be able to appeal to those within his party who want a different foreign policy with fewer military interventions, Democratic consultants say.
“Many Democrats have some concerns about our role in the Middle East,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and former top staffer with Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and Harry Reid.
“Part of the issue is [Mrs. Clinton] voted for the authorization to go to war in Iraq, a vote that has since haunted her. If [Mr. Webb] were to go in, he has strong foreign policy and national security credentials he could use, and based on what I saw in the Senate, I assume those issues, and anything related to the armed forces, will be a big priority for him,” Mr. Manley said.
Others agree.
“For those whose issue is foreign policy, but who want an option to the left of Clinton, yes, Webb could be the guy — and given his military background, it seems likely that’s where he’ll make his play,” said Democratic strategist Christy Setzer, though she added that “as of now, there’s no horse race; it’s only Clinton.”
Mr. Manley said the tougher battle for Mrs. Clinton may come when she has to answer to Republicans, who see her role in Libya and other actions as secretary of state as fraught with mismanagement and overreach.
Indeed, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is expected to seek the Republican presidential nomination, already is making Mrs. Clinton’s tenure running the State Department — and her involvement in Libya — a tenet of his campaign.
“I think there was a rush headlong toward war in Libya, and they weren’t listening to anyone saying anything otherwise — including the defense department and intelligence communities, who were saying, ’hold on a minute, this may not be a good idea,’” Mr. Paul said. “Hillary’s judgment has to be questioned — her eagerness for war in Libya should preclude her from being considered the next commander in chief.”
• Maggie Ybarra contributed to this report.
• Kelly Riddell can be reached at kriddell@washingtontimes.com.
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