WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's doctrine
of dealing with American enemies just got another test — and, for him, another
vindication.
The death of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi
reinforces Obama's style of dealing with enemies without immersing the United
States in war.
Even skeptics offered grudging support.
For Obama, the outcome allowed him to stand
victorious in the Rose Garden on Thursday, taking note also of the death this
year of prominent al-Qaida leaders at the hands of the United States. His
message: The United States showed it can help rally an international campaign to
protect Libyans and rid the world of a killer without a single U.S. troop
dying.
His vice president, Joe Biden, went further.
"This is more of the prescription for how to
deal with the world as we go forward than it has been in the past," Biden
said in New Hampshire, as the administration sought again to distance itself
from an era of politics once dominated by the Iraq war.
For Obama, the larger story is of an administration
with deepening credibility on how to handle bad actors or international tinderboxes
without immersing the United States in war.
It is not expected to impact his re-election
chances; 2012 will be the economy election.
But it burnishes his standing on how to protect the
country and work with the rest of the world.
As Obama likes to remind Americans, he is the
president who hastened the end of the war in Iraq, and he is now winding down
the one in Afghanistan after expanding it greatly. And in a span of months, the
country has seen the demise of infamous men who either had killed Americans or
haunted the United States by targeting it for terror attacks.
Obama ordered a daring special forces raid in
Pakistan in May that led to the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, the
architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
Last month, a U.S. drone strike in the mountains of
Yemen killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen and prominent al-Qaida figure
who was deemed as having an operational role in plots against the U.S. The
plots included two nearly catastrophic attacks on U.S.-bound planes — an
airliner on Christmas 2009 and cargo planes last year.
And then came the confirmed reports Thursday that
Gadhafi was dead. There were conflicting accounts on how he died, but little
doubt he suffered a grisly end.
Libyans celebrated and Obama spoke of a victorious
revolution for those who had suffered under Gadhafi's rule.
"The dark shadow of tyranny has been
lifted," Obama said. He spoke of Gadhafi as a man who beat and killed his
people and who for decades robbed a nation of its potential.
What the president didn't note was the criticism he
faced from some members of Congress earlier in the campaign, long before rebels
got their foothold in overthrowing Gadhafi. Obama had gotten heat on various
fronts — acting too slowly in the first place, acting without sufficient
consent from Congress, acting in a way that left the United States vulnerable
to endless trouble.
One top Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South
Carolina, said Thursday that replacing Gadhafi with a representative democracy
in Libya will be "worth its weight in gold in terms of our national
security." He added that fellow Republicans who "wanted the War
Powers Act invoked would not have asked for it if President Obama wasn't the
president."
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, asked in
Iowa whether Obama deserved credit for killing Gadhafi, answered, "Yes,
absolutely."
Obama's opponent in the 2008 election, Republican
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, told CNN that the Obama administration should be
credited but could have accelerated Gadhafi's fall by acting earlier and more
expansively.
The U.S. and NATO allies launched a bombing
campaign in Libya on March 19 after the United Nations authorized military
action in order to protect civilians from attacks perpetrated by Gadhafi
loyalists.
The U.S. took the initial lead in the campaign,
launching an air and sea assault on Gadhafi's forces in order to protect
civilians and provide cover to the Libyan rebels.
By the end of March, the U.S. assumed a secondary
role in Libya, with the French and the British carrying out the bulk of the
bombing missions. U.S. assets turned their focus toward support and
intelligence.
When asked if the outcome was a vindication of his
strategy, Obama said: "We did exactly what we said we were going to do in
Libya."
Obama's response to Gadhafi's death allowed him to
keep the focus on Libyan civilians and not face charges that he was seeking
unseemly political gain by declaring victory.
Yet he wasn't silent on that. He offered credit to
the united effort of intervention when Gadhafi was threatening what Obama
warned would be a massacre.
"The United States and our friends and allies
stopped Gadhafi's forces in their tracks," Obama said.
And he put Libya in his own context of Iraq,
Afghanistan and the targeted death of al-Qaida leaders this way: "We see
the strength of American leadership across the world."
Biden on Thursday suggested the U.S. approach to
Libya was the new way of waging war — less cost, less risk to Americans. In
short, not Iraq.
"I think we'll let analysts make observations
about that comparison," Obama spokesman Jay Carney said when asked about
it later. "The president simply believes that the action that he took,
that this administration took, working with our allies, working with NATO,
working with our partners in the Arab world, was the right action for
Libya."
Foreign affairs remains Obama's strong suit in the
public's eyes, with 59 percent approving of how he handles relationships with
other countries and 64 percent approving his handling of terrorism, far
outpacing his overall approval rating, according to a new AP-GfK poll.
But these issues are much less important to most
Americans than the economy and unemployment.
Gadhafi's death likely will have a fleeting impact
on domestic politics, but a lasting one on a part of the world that matters to
American interests.
And, as Obama said, to the Libyan people.
Associated Press writers Julie Pace, Erica Werner
and Donna Cassata in Washington, Kasie Hunt in Iowa and AP Deputy Director of
Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
