Applebaum: Marines Shouldn't Go Back To Tripoli
Anne Applebaum writes in the Washington Post:
I'm listening hard, but I just can't hear the "voices around the world" that my colleague Charles Krauthammer said last week are "calling for U.S. intervention to help bring down Moammar Gaddafi." It's true that John Bolton, former U.N. ambassador and present Fox News employee, has declared that "strong American words (and actions) were amply warranted" in Libya. It's also true that a clutch of American politicians and writers have come out in favor of a similarly muscular response as well.
But outside America's borders, all is silent. Certainly nobody in the Arab world is clamoring for American military intervention, or indeed any American intervention: Egyptian democrats are even wary of taking our development money. ("Help from America can be misunderstood," one would-be Egyptian politician delicately explained to The Post a few days ago.)
Nobody in Asia and nobody in Europe is calling for the Marines to be sent back to the shores of Tripoli either. The French, feeling guilty for having failed to support (or even foresee) the revolution in Tunisia, have sent humanitarian aid to Benghazi - but have simultaneously argued against military involvement. The British have already bungled their first solo attempt to see what could be done. On Saturday, a British special forces team and an MI6 intelligence officer touched down near Benghazi, intending simply to make contact with the rebels. They were promptly arrested, handcuffed, interrogated and sent out of the country. The last thing the rebels want, apparently, is the stigma of contact with foreigners.
Why the Arab anxiety about American and Western help? Why the reluctance among our allies? The answer can be summed up in a single word: Iraq. Far from setting "an example for the entire region," as Krauthammer put it, Iraq serves as a dire warning: Beware, for this could be the fate of your country. When the U.S. Army entered Iraq, we knew nothing about the Iraqi opposition, except what we'd heard from a couple of exiles. Our soldiers didn't speak Arabic and hadn't been told what to do once they got to Baghdad. Chaos followed incompetence, which begat violence: Tens of thousands of people died in an eight-year civil war. Although a fragile democracy has emerged, this isn't an example anyone, anywhere, wants to follow.
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