Does Libya Offer Clues To An Obama Doctrine?

President Obama speaks in the White House Rose Garden to discuss the death of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Responding to Gadhafi's death yesterday, President Obama said it marked the end of a long and painful chapter for the people of Libya. The seven-month military campaign that toppled the Libyan leader also marks a high point for the kind of international cooperation that Mr. Obama has championed. The White House was careful yesterday not to claim mission accomplished. But as NPR's Scott Horsley reports, the Libyan intervention does offer an example of what an Obama Doctrine might look like.

SCOTT HORSLEY: President Obama gave much of the credit for Gadhafi's ouster to the Libyan people themselves. But he also called it a demonstration of what collective action by the international community can accomplish.

President BARACK OBAMA: Without putting a single U.S. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives, and our NATO mission will soon come to an end.

HORSLEY: That outcome was far from assured when the mission began back in March. It was only after weeks of international wrangling, and only when rebel forces were about to be overrun, that Mr. Obama agreed to join the coordinated attack.

OBAMA: Make no mistake: Today we are part of a broad coalition, we are answering the calls of a threatened people, and we are acting in the interests of the United States and the world.

HORSLEY: Not everyone agreed with Mr. Obama. Some wanted the U.S. to stay out of Libya altogether. Others called for a more aggressive attack by U.S. forces alone. Republicans, including Mitt Romney, pounced on the idea that Mr. Obama was, quote, "leading from behind." Romney told talk radio host Hugh Hewitt the president was wrong to condition his Libyan action on an OK from the Arab League or the United Nations.

MITT ROMNEY: Without a compass to guide him in our increasingly, you know, turbulent world, he's tentative, indecisive, timid and nuanced.

HORSLEY: But Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes argues the president's insistence on a coalition effort paid off in more ways than one.

BEN RHODES: First of all, it dramatically lowers the cost to the American people. We spent just over a billion dollars, which is dramatically less than we have in recent military interventions. And also we see a great deal of legitimacy for our actions when we work internationally with other partners and allies.

HORSLEY: At the same time, Mr. Obama has not been shy about acting unilaterally when he sees a direct threat to the United States. Consider the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, for example, or last month's attack on Anwar al-Awlaki. But in cases where the U.S. is not directly threatened, there's long been a tension in foreign policy circles between idealists who favor more aggressive efforts to promote democracy and human rights around the world, and realists, who take a more cautious, hardheaded view of America's interests. In his Nobel Peace Prize speech, Mr. Obama argued foreign policy need not be all one or the other. And Rhodes says Libya is a good example of that.

RHODES: I think you see idealism and realism come together in Libya. We acted on our highest ideals in preventing a humanitarian catastrophe. We also acted realistically. We didn't overextend ourselves. We took the time to build a coalition so that others were sharing part of the burden. And in that way we were able to protect our interests and our ideals.

HORSLEY: But making that decision was not easy, and many of the same arguments had to be hashed out within the administration itself. So what should the international community do about the next country where a despotic leader threatens his own people? Anne-Marie Slaughter is a former official in the Obama State Department who now teaches at Princeton.

ANNE MARIE SLAUGHTER: That is one of the hardest questions. Because we can't intervene everywhere doesn't mean we shouldn't intervene where we can and where we can save lives and advance our interests. But it's more often the case that the political conditions and the military conditions do not align. This kind of intervention is still much more the exception than the rule.

HORSLEY: Slaughter adds the collapse of any government, even one as tyrannical as Gadhafi's, is bound to be followed by a period of uncertainty.

SLAUGHTER: You don't create stable democratic governments overnight. And you have to accept that that's going to be part of the bargain when you make these decisions.

HORSLEY: President Obama acknowledged Libya has a long and difficult road ahead. But after decades of tolerating tyranny as the price of stability in the Middle East, the administration has concluded change is the only hope. Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.

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