Vanderbilt Political Review Fall 2013 | Page 16

FEATURE terrible, preventable decisions. These decisions, however, were part of a more fundamental and disturbing handling of Libya: a year and a half earlier, the Obama administration launched 110 cruise missiles into a country where huge factions of Islamist militants were well-positioned to take control. How can this be considered a legitimate foreign policy? What chain of scenario-building justified such a scheme? It is all too apparent from the operation that the Obama administration simply did not scenario-build in Libya. Instead, it slapped the hopeful name “Odyssey Dawn” on an operation in a hopeful ‘movement,’ the “Arab Spring,” and then shot off its rockets in an attempt to hit Gaddafi and – in the resulting shockwave – propel some humanitarian democrat into control. Afterwards, when Obama declared to the United Nations that Americans “stood with” the “peaceful” Libyans in casting off the tyrant Gaddafi, to which Libyans was he referring? The gun-toting barbarians flogging Gaddafi’s pulped body in the streets? This image clearly portended the security situation unfolding in Libya after the “revolution.” Indeed, according to a recent analysis by Daniel Wagner and Giorgio Cafiero of RealClearPolitics, “it would be an understatement to say that the National Transition Council (NTC) has failed to govern Libya effectively since the fall of Gaddafi. The majority of territory outside Tripoli has fallen under the control of armed militias that have refused to disarm.” These conditions were very apparent at the time – yet Obama, like Carter before him, took no meaningful preventative action. Although Carter and Obama share similar failures in foreign policy, their administrations’ reactions to their respective crises uncovered very different priorities of character. Despite Carter knowing that the Iran hostage crisis would destroy his political career, he worked obsessively to 16 VANDERBILT POLITICAL REVIEW secure the hostages’ release and did not attempt to deflect responsibility. He was still directing negotiations fifteen minutes before Ronald Reagan assumed office – up until the First Lady forced him to shave and change clothing in order to greet the new President. Despite the myth that the hostages were released simply as a result of Reagan’s victory, it was actually the Algiers Accord that secured the hostages’ release. Carter and his special negotiator Warren Christopher had worked tirelessly on the deal and as a result, as Reagan was lunching after his inauguration, Carter and Christopher received confirmation from Tehran that the hostages had lifted off. In contrast to Carter, the Obama administration’s prime concern was deflection. Hillary Clinton tried to wash her hands of the murder by claiming that such trivial matters as ambassadorial security end up lost in the bureaucracy. Carter could have employed the same defense but had the moral scruple to accept responsibility as the Comm