Hillary Clinton, ‘Smart Power’ and a Dictator’s Fall, Parts 1 and 2

The president was wary. The
secretary of state was persuasive.
But the ouster of Col. Muammar
el-Qaddafi left Libya a failed
state and a terrorist haven.

'BY THE TIME Mahmoud Jibril cleared customs at Le Bourget airport and sped into Paris, the American secretary of state had been waiting for hours. But this was not a meeting Hillary Clinton could cancel. Their encounter could decide whether America was again going to war.

In the throes of the Arab Spring, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was facing a furious revolt by Libyans determined to end his quixotic 42-year rule. The dictator’s forces were approaching Benghazi, the crucible of the rebellion, and threatening a blood bath. France and Britain were urging the United States to join them in a military campaign to halt Colonel Qaddafi’s troops, and now the Arab League, too, was calling for action.

President Obama was deeply wary of another military venture in a Muslim country. Most of his senior advisers were telling him to stay out. Still, he dispatched Mrs. Clinton to sound out Mr. Jibril, a leader of the Libyan opposition. Their late-night meeting on March 14, 2011, would be the first chance for a top American official to get a sense of whom, exactly, the United States was being asked to support.

In her suite at the Westin, she and Mr. Jibril, a political scientist with a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh, spoke at length about the fast-moving military situation in Libya. But Mrs. Clinton was clearly also thinking about Iraq, and its hard lessons for American intervention. . .

“But when the choice is between action and inaction, and you’ve got risks in either direction, which you often do, she’d rather be caught trying.”'>>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html?

THE LIBYA GAMBLE PART 2 A New Libya, With ‘Very Little Time Left’

The fall of Col. Muammar
el-Qaddafi seemed to
vindicate Hillary Clinton.
Then militias refused to
disarm, neighbors fanned
a civil war, and the
Islamic State found refuge.

'The first news reports of Colonel Qaddafi’s capture and killing in October 2011 reached the secretary of state in Kabul, Afghanistan, where she had just sat down for a televised interview. “Wow!” she said, looking at an aide’s BlackBerry before cautiously noting that the report had not yet been confirmed. But Hillary Clinton seemed impatient for a conclusion to the multinational military intervention she had done so much to organize, and in a rare unguarded moment, she dropped her reserve.

“We came, we saw, he died!” she exclaimed.

Two days before, Mrs. Clinton had taken a triumphal tour of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and for weeks top aides had been circulating a “ticktock” that described her starring role in the events that had led to this moment. The timeline, her top policy aide, Jake Sullivan, wrote, demonstrated Mrs. Clinton’s “leadership/ownership/stewardship of this country’s Libya policy from start to finish.” The memo’s language put her at the center of everything: “HRC announces … HRC directs … HRC travels … HRC engages,” it read.'>>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/libya-isis-hillary-clinton.html?


http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016145734