Obama's misadventure

The Middle East is literally burning. The upsurging civil war in Libya against the defiant Col. Gaddafi, who has been in the power for over 40 years, has finally caught the attentions of western military coalition including the US, UK, and France, and this time again they give a much convincing reason for military actions – extreme humanitarian crisis – to engage them in a full range airstrikes across the coastal periphery of Tripoli, the capital of Libya. Though the coalition forces claim that their intention is not to bring in large scale human loss, the offensive attacks prove otherwise. There are reports of killings in Tripoli due to airstrikes. The mindless airstrikes even pose a more dangerous situation than an uprising civil war in Libya.

But the key question here is what strategic parameters did incite President Obama to jump into the action when the UK and France were leading the stage with UNSC's call for a NFZ on Libya? Is it a deliberate action to make one's mighty presence felt across the polarizing world when other super powers intervene, or a deeper understanding of the gravity of the situation that has not only inflicted Libya, but also other nations in Arab world? The intention is still unclear.

When the US is passing through a painful recession and still not recouped from the economic crisis, why did then Obama intervene in a Libyan civil war where he would not gain much, given the strategic interests of UK and France? It seems the US is also equally interested in the Libya's oil resources and to position its strategic military base out in the Middle East. Historically, the US has attempted to control the internal crises in the Muslim countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, or the recent incident in Libya, the single most priority other than a presumed world peace has been acquiring the energy resources. But in Libya's case, the US won't get much benefits as it expects due to other coalition forces those have already pinned their hopes, rather it would meaninglessly waste few billions on mindless airstrikes.

There is another angle to huge loss that Obama would procure from this military reaction. Perhaps, the President has forgotten his responsibility as a recipient of Nobel Peace Award, and this honour has a large stake in his intentions and actions that he would plan to execute for international forums. At least, in the recent scenario he has failed miserably to display his custodianship of an award that has primarily bestowed upon the personalities who truly not only believe in global peace, but also take immense measures to ensure that any kind of world conflict however complex can be resolved through continuous dialogues, not through military actions or blanket bans.

Especially, for Obama, it was a great opportunity to disengage him from the banal politics and work towards a better statesmanship in restoring internal peace in Libya and eventually transitioning the state from a highly conflicting civil war to a lasting democratic nation, as he always vouches for democracy in many of his international speeches. Even doing that he could have won the trust of the Libyans and also he could have nurtured his long term strategic dreams.