The Libyan Effect

Daily Caller has two items on Libya; one on how the Libyan escapade is blowing all the budget gains the GOP won in the last few weeks, and another on how the professional left is going to try and spin this misadventure into an Obama victory:

1.) Libyan sticker shock -- Anyone remember the budget debates over the last few weeks, even months? So does the Defense Department. "U.S. military operations in Libya could wipe out a significant chunk of the budget cuts won by congressional Republicans in recent weeks, defense analysts say," reports The Hill’s Russell Berman and John T. Bennett. "GOP leaders have trumpeted enacted spending reductions that amount to more than $285 million per day since the beginning of March." Unfortunately, those budget savings are already being burned through over at the Pentagon, which is spending roughly $100 million per day to squelch what amounts to a massive temper tantrum from a billionaire, fashion-disaster dictator. While there’s no official estimate of the total cost yet, here’s to hoping the U.S. and Europe can "go Dutch" on this one and split the tab.

2.) Speculation on how Libya impacts Obama in 2012 to begin in 3...2... -- "Democratic political strategists are deeply divided over the political risks and benefits of the Libyan intervention, the resulting media coverage and its impact on the fast-approaching 2012 election," reports The Daily Caller’s own Neil Munro. According to one professional Democrat, Tad Devine, all Obama needs to do to claim victory is remove Gaddafi (who once said he would "die a martyr" if necessary to hold onto power), and turn the story of American intervention in Libya into one of political progress in the Arab world. Another strategist, Dave ‘Mudcat’ Saunders, is less certain about the benefits and told TheDC "we don’t need another American war now." The bottom line? The professional left is scrambling to figure out just how much harder Obama’s Libya move will make their jobs during the 2012 election cycle. But hey, if Republicans could do it in 2004...

I can't see how Libya helps Obama in any way. If he thought playing tough guy to Gaddafi will win him support among independents and Republicans, that's not gonna happen. And the antiwar left, while still pretty quiet, can't be happy about Mr. Rainbows and Unicorns throwing missiles at another Muslim.

So what if Gadaffi's government collapses and he's driven out? Now you have another tribal society that's likely to fall into complete chaos with outside financial and military support almost guaranteed to keep it from becoming a killing field. It's the recipe for a never-ending American involvement.

And why shouldn't Obama benefit from military intervention the way Bush did in 2004? Americans could see the threat from the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hussein in Iraq and they understood those people wanted nothing more than to kill Americans. Such is not the case with Libya. Gadaffi is a nut, but Bush pretty much neutered him when he got him to turn his nuke program over to the West. He wasn't going to pose much of a threat to the United States.

As is the Democrat pattern, once again they've gone to war in a situation that posed no direct threat to the U.S. (see Somalia and Bosnia for other examples). That won't play well with the voters in 2012.