Libya

Libya, Five Years Later

Featured image Hillary Clinton’s emails reveal that she intended the overthrow of Moammar Qaddafi to be the crown jewel of her tenure as Secretary of State. It was to be her principal credential when she made her inevitable run for the presidency. But Clinton and Barack Obama made the inexplicable decision to overthrow Libya’s government without having a plan for what would succeed it, and Libya turned into a disaster. The scope »

The lady’s memory vanishes

Featured image I missed Chris Matthews’s town hall with Hillary Clinton on MSNBC last night. I imagine that I’m in good company in that oversight. Would Matthews have quizzed her about her voluminous email related lies? I also imagine that Chris Matthews is as sick of hearing about Hillary’s unsecured private email server as Bernie Sanders is. The conversation did turn to foreign policy in general and Libya in particular (video below). »

Hillary Clinton: Another Enemy of Israel

Featured image Caroline Glick is, in my opinion, the most astute commentator on events in Israel and the surrounding region. In yesterday’s column, she assessed Hillary Clinton as a possible successor to Barack Obama: Whether or not Obama’s anti-Israel policies will survive his tenure in office depends on who succeeds him. If Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton is elected to serve as the next president, there is no question that they will survive »

On Libya, Kasich is right, Rubio is wrong, and Trump is lying

Featured image During last night’s debate, Ted Cruz criticized Marco Rubio for supporting U.S. military intervention in Libya to topple the Qaddafi regime. Qaddafi’s demise has, of course, resulted in awful consequences, including, but certainly not limited to, the rise of ISIS in Libya Rubio responded that he supported our intervention because it was foregone conclusion that Qaddafi would fall and he wanted the U.S. to facilitate a satisfactory post-Qaddafi future. Unfortunately, »

Trump on Libya, then and now

Featured image During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump has come down hard on the Obama administration for intervening in Libya to help topple Muammar Qaddafi. Trump says, for example, that the world would be better off with Qaddafi in power. Indeed, he has argued that “frankly there is no Libya; it’s all broken up; they have no control; nobody knows what’s going on.” Trump probably isn’t far wrong in his assessment. However, »

Hillary: Responsible for the Libya Debacle

Featured image One of Hillary Clinton’s key weaknesses as a presidential candidate is her poor record as Secretary of State. In that respect, Libya is critical. Hillary was the key driver behind our Libya policy. It was largely her decision to overthrow Qaddafi for no particular reason, with no plan for what would come after. This represents an almost incredible lapse in judgment. Benghazi is important, but it is only one aspect »

Donald Trump’s fallacious analysis of Middle East instability

Featured image Donald Trump said on Meet the Press yesterday that the Middle East would be a more stable place if Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi were still in power. For once, Trump answered a question about the Middle East more or less correctly. The Middle East would be more stable if Saddam and Qaddafi held true power in Iraq and Libya. But the question is whether, absent foreign intervention, Saddam and »

The Obama-Hillary Libya debacle

Featured image Everyone understands by now that our intervention in Libya produced a disaster. But many fail to appreciate the magnitude of the disaster. And few understand that the stated reason for the intervention, to prevent a bloodbath, lacked any real basis in fact. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Alan Kuperman, an associate professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, provides clarity on these points. »

Blumenthal Email Confirms: Libya Was To Be Hillary’s Crowning Accomplishment

Featured image Paul wrote earlier today about the trove of Libya-related emails that Sidney Blumenthal has turned over to a House committee. The emails are embarrassing to Hillary Clinton because she received the emails from Blumenthal, but apparently failed to produce them to the committee. For the most part, these emails have not yet been made public, but National Review has exclusively obtained one of them; it is reproduced in full below. »

Clinton’s Benghazi emails confirm her lack of post-intervention plan for Libya

Featured image As John has explained, Hillary Clinton doesn’t just have a Benghazi problem; she has a Libya problem. More than anyone else, Hillary Clinton pushed for, and helped effectuate, the overthrow of Moammar Qaddafi. As a result of his overthrow, Libya became a playground for terrorists, a haven for ISIS, and a failed state. Clinton’s recently released Benghazi emails confirm her leading role in creating the Libya fiasco. They confirm that, »

Hillary’s Real Benghazi Problem

Featured image Yesterday the State Department released a handful of Hillary Clinton’s emails relating to Benghazi. They have been selected at least twice for release to the public, once by Hillary’s minions and once by the Department, so no one expected any bombshells. Nevertheless, I find them surprisingly interesting. This post addresses what I think is the most important point. I will cover a few smaller matters in a future post. This »

Hillary Clinton, “Sid Vicious,” and Libya

Featured image The New York Times presents an account of Sidney Blumenthal’s memos to Hillary Clinton concerning Libya. For the benefit of our younger readers and those with short memories, I should say that during Bill Clinton’s presidency, Blumenthal was probably the slimiest of Team Clinton’s operatives, earning the nickname Sid Vicious. For example, according to Christopher Hitchens, once Blumenthal’s good friend, vicious Sid spread defamatory stories about Monica Lewinsky. Hitchens swore »

Obama whispers “bang-bang” to terrorists

Featured image According to the Washington Post, weapons and ammunition are in such short supply at the centers where Iraqi army units receive training to fight ISIS that the trainees are yelling “bang-bang” instead of shooting. Last August, when President Obama announced that the U.S. would undertake a mostly proxy war against ISIS, I would have said that yelling “bang-bang” is the perfect metaphor for his anti-terrorism campaign. Today, whispering “bang-bang” is »

Ambassador who sided with Muslim Brotherhood spearheads State Department’s anti-ISIS effort

Featured image John Kerry has assembled a three-person team to lead the State Department’s efforts against ISIS. Two of the members — Gen. John Allen and Brett McGurk — seem unobjectionable. The third, Anne Patterson, is another matter. In announcing her central role, Kerry praised Patterson as “one of our nation’s top diplomats deeply respected in the region.” But Patterson is not respected in Egypt, where she served as ambassador during the »

The situation “remains very fluid”

Featured image FOX News is touting the video below this morning as “jihadis gone wild.” They assert that it depicts Libyan jihadis disporting themselves at what is described as the CIA annex to our embassy in Tripoli. If this is the CIA annex, this must be the double secret pool outside it. CNN reports on the video in “Libyan militia uses vacated U.S. embassy in Libya as swim club.” In the CNN »

No longer even “leading from behind,” Obama is out of the loop in Libya

Featured image Egypt and the United Arab Emirates carried out airstrikes in Tripoli this weekend against the Islamist militants who were in the process of taking control of that city and its airport. The airstrikes appear to have failed to prevent that takeover. The government of Libya is, in the words of its ambassador to Egypt, “unable to protect its institutions, its airports, and natural resources, especially the oil fields.” Moreover, the »

Hillary Clinton and the decision to intervene in Libya

Featured image Hillary Clinton has been working full-time to control the story of her time as Secretary of State. That was the point of her clunky, largely unread book, and the point of her awkward, gaffe-laden book tour. Clinton argues (plausibly) that she wanted a more activist approach to Syria than that served up by her boss. She argues (implausibly) that she wasn’t really sold on the “reset” with Russia. As to »