There's Still No Obama Doctrine

The New York Times reports:

WASHINGTON — So, is there an Obama doctrine?

In laying out his justification for the American-led assault on Libya on Monday night, the president offered the most detailed portrait of when he might commit the country’s military might in a tumultuous world.

He would take action, he said, if vital national security interests were at stake. He would consider it if economic interests were threatened, or if there was a humanitarian crisis so deep it could not be ignored. But in those two instances, he would hesitate unless there was international participation, and the cost was not too high.

But these conditions seemed tailor made for Libya, and the president seemed to provide little guidance for what position he would take in other, more vital nations in the region now roiled by an “Arab Spring” of popular uprising. Nor did Mr. Obama’s speech on Monday shed light on whether the president would use force in other trouble spots.

“If there were ever a speech more dedicated to eliminating the idea of a doctrine, this was it,” said David J. Rothkopf, the author of “Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power.” “He basically said, ‘We have American values and they’re going to define us, and we’re going to stick to them — provided it’s not too hard to do so.’ ”

Some of Mr. Obama’s advisers have said he has studiously avoided turning Libya into a case study for his view of foreign policy, given that it is not vital to American interests in the region and that his administration is trying to play down the United States’ role in what they hope will be a NATO-led mission. To their minds, the limited use of air power in Libya does not call for an inspiring or sweeping statement of the role of governmental power. The Libya standard may not apply to the rest of the world.

In fact, Mr. Obama’s description of his criteria for military intervention offers little hint of what he might do in Ivory Coast, for example, where the United Nations says at least 700,000 people have fled their homes in Abidjan to escape daily gunfire spurred by Laurent Gbagbo’s efforts to stay in power after losing a presidential election in November, and where 10,000 civilians were holed up in a Catholic mission in one town, seeking refuge from Mr. Gbagbo’s forces.

Nor does it easily apply to Darfur, where the Sudanese government is defying a United Nations Security Council resolution by bombing rebels, and where the United Nations estimates that at least 300,000 people have died in a humanitarian crisis sparked by a counterinsurgency campaign that began in 2003.

As for the rest of the Middle East, White House officials say the president will respond to the unfolding events on a country-by-country basis, and will resist a one-size-fits-all American policy.

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