Libya Snapshot: Why the US Intervened "Up to 100,000 Could Be Massacred"
Friday, March 25, 2011 at 8:34
An interesting report from Laura Rozen on the declared motives for Washington's shift from scepticism to leadership of military operations against the Qaddafi regime in Libya:
...."This is a limited humanitarian intervention, not war," White House Middle East strategist Dennis Ross, National Security Council strategic planning official Derek Chollet, and two military officials told a group of outside foreign policy and Middle East experts during a briefing at the White House Roosevelt Room Tuesday.
"We were looking at 'Srebrenica on steroids' --- the real or imminent possibility that up to a 100,000 people could be massacred, and everyone would blame us for it," Ross explained, according to one of the foreign policy experts who attended the briefing, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the administration is trying to keep its consultations private. (Nevertheless, one of the attendees referenced the White House meeting in a tweet.)
See also The US & the Uprisings: Playing Chess, Playing Go --- Human Rights v. National Security
[Editor's Note: Srebenica, in Bosnia and Herzogovina, was the site of the mass killing of more than 8000 men and boys by Serbian forces in July 1995.]
The White House national security officials also stressed that U.S.-led military operations in Libya would be transitioning soon to a more multilateral effort. Under this arrangement, the administration intends to stress that the United States will not be taking the lead, attendees said.
"The president has made brutally clear to all of us that we are transitioning," Ross stressed, according to the attendee.
Among those who attended the Tuesday White House briefing were the Center for American Progress Middle East expert Brian Katulis, the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Jon Alterman, George Washington University Middle East expert Marc Lynch, the Center for New American Security's Andrew Exum, and the New American Foundation's Steve Clemons....
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