Some analysts now see the potential for a slow-motion humanitarian crisis in Libya. | REUTERS Obama takes heat on Libya

When President Barack Obama announced last month that he was sending the U.S. military into action over Libya, the intervention held out the promise of being both quick and decisive.

But with Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi apparently dug in for the long haul and the NATO coalition unwilling to commit ground troops to oust him, the Obama administration faces a stalemate that could last for months — and rising criticism that the goals and possible consequences of U.S. action were not thought through.


“We’ve intervened in someone else’s civil war but we’ve not intervened with sufficient force to change the outcome to our liking,” said James Lindsay of the Council on Foreign Relations, who outlined this possible scenario:

“Likely the fighting is going to continue, the death rate will be high, the TV images are going to be awful, the drumbeat of criticism from the news corps, the punditocracy and the intervention caucus on Capitol Hill will get really loud,” Lindsay said. “Should we get to that point, Obama’s going to have a choice: Do more or find a way out.”

From the outset, Obama promised that U.S. forces would quickly move from taking a key role in airstrikes to supporting other militaries. But defense secretary Robert Gates acknowledged Thursday that the transition took longer than planned. And while denying “ mission creep,” he also tacitly admitted that U.S. firepower was still needed, announcing that the U.S. returned armed drones to the battle this week to go after Qadhafi loyalists that were eluding NATO planes.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded Friday that the Libyan situation “is certainly moving toward a stalemate.”

“The regime forces have changed their tactics and changed it in a way where they essentially look like the opposition forces,” Mullen said during a trip to Iraq. “It’s become a much more difficult fight.”

The standoff is fueled in part by the key asterisk to the West’s Libya policy: While Obama and other leaders have called for Qadhafi to step down, forcing him out is not one of the stated objectives of the military campaign, which is aimed at preventing attacks on civilians.

Obama originally justified U.S. involvement on the grounds that it was needed to avert an imminent humanitarian crisis there, including the possibility that large numbers of civilians would be killed if forces loyal to Qadhafi overran the rebel-held city of Benghazi.

Now critics see a stalemate producing a similar, slow-motion humanitarian crisis that could linger for months.

“Deterring Qadhafi’s forces from moving forward doesn’t remove him from power, doesn’t create a functioning economy, doesn’t solve humanitarian problems of people being out of their homes, out of work — all of which comes from having this war drag on and on,” said Anthony Cordesman, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution. “What gets totally lost here is you have hundreds of thousands of people displaced here — refugees … you’re losing economic opportunity, losing jobs, the educational system is breaking down, the whole infrastructure is coming under pressure.”

“The problem we face, is, having started this without evidently any clear plan as to what the outcome would be, we are everyday making this worse. These are not casual costs: When you don’t have medical services, you may not see people killed, but they’re dying,” Cordesman said.

While administration officials may have hoped the Libya crisis would move to the back burner, perhaps due to an abrupt exit by Qadhafi, Obama has taken a pounding in recent days in newspaper op-eds and from TV pundits of all persuasions.

In Europe and elsewhere, there are calls for Obama to do more to oust the Libyan strongman.

“We’ve lost credibility,” said Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Some say Qadhafi’s a pipsqueak and it looks like we can’t get rid of him. The Iranians and the North Korean are out on the international circuit saying just that.”

Two former Bush administration officials — Michael Hayden, the former CIA director, and Michael Chertoff, the former Homeland Security secretary — warned Friday that Obama underestimates the challenges that would occur if he does succeed in ousting Qadhafi.

Meanwhile, while some have said the Predators are too small a step to affect the balance of power, others such as the Atlantic’s James Fallows and The Washington Post’s David Ignatius said turning to armed drones at all was a mistake. “It brings a weapon that has become for many Muslims a symbol of the arrogance of U.S. power into a theater next door to the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions,” Ignatius wrote.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has been the most prominent American voice for more aggressive military action. “There is … much more that needs to be done,” McCain said at a news conference in Benghazi on Friday at which he called on the Obama administration and other countries to arm the opposition — “my heroes,” he told The Associated Press — and transfer frozen Qadhafi assets to the council formed by rebel leaders.

In addition, he called for formal recognition of the rebels and to “urgently step up” NATO’s airstrikes on Qadhafi’s forces. However, McCain also told reporters that he was not seeking western combat forces, or “boots on the ground.”

So far, Obama has been unwilling to provide arms to the opposition, though $25 million in “non-lethal” aid has been authorized by the U.S.

“It’s important to remember that Qadhafi’s resources are limited. And the arms embargo and the sanctions that have been put in place will, as each goes by, make it harder and harder for him to function and for his regime to function,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said. But another White House spokesman said Friday that the administration had not changed its views on the points raised by McCain.

Despite the daylight between McCain’s position and that of the White House, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate lashed out at critics of Obama’s policy and the international effort to protect the Libyan opposition.

“I challenge the critics of the international intervention in Libya to come here to Benghazi, to meet with these people and their leaders, and to repeat that we had no interest in preventing Qaddafi from slaughtering these Libyan dissidents, which is exactly what he had pledged to do,” McCain said.

“Had President Obama and our allies not acted, history would have remembered Benghazi in the same breath as Srebrenica — a scene of mass atrocities and a source of international shame. Instead, Benghazi today is a source of hope.”

With members of both parties on various sides of the issue, and many altogether mum about it, Congress has yet to reach a consensus about the Libya operation. However, an upcoming deadline could force some action, and, perhaps, a reevaluation by the White House of its policy.

Under the War Powers Act, Obama is supposed to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from the Libya operation by May 20 if Congress has not authorized the mission. Presidents have generally complied with the notification requirement in the act, while contending the law is unconstitutional.

The White House has claimed, with the earlier agreement of some in Congress, that an authorizing resolution would not be required because American involvement had been confined to NATO. The signs of a protracted fight and the decision to re-introduce the armed U.S. drones could escalate the congressional debate, which has been muted during the current recess.

“The pressures have been there from the beginning,” said one Senate leadership aide. “There were people pointing out the issues and looking for a solution. I don’t know whether [the pressure to act] would be higher or lower or sort of the same — which already is kind of high.”

“That first Tuesday lunch back is probably going to be an opportunity for the people who are really studying this issue closely, to talk to their colleagues about it,” the aide added of the Senate’s weekly policy lunches.

McCain, who has been one of the lead negotiators on a resolution regarding the Libyan crisis, told a small group of reporters before the recess that he and a few other senators, including Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), had essentially “nailed down” language for a non-binding measure on Libya known as a “sense of the Senate” resolution. The Senate already has voted on one of these — an offering of disapproval made by Kentucky freshman Rand Paul — earlier this month, with 10 Republicans voting to symbolically oppose military action in Libya.

McCain and other have claimed all along that their goal was to produce language that could get broader support in Congress, even if others were going to offer divergent resolutions. Just before recess, Kerry echoed McCain’s sentiment on the status of their resolution, saying negotiators had “the language resolved except for two words.”

By the time Congress gets back, it’s entirely possible two words could be the new starting point.

Kerry also has suggested there’s too much handwringing over Libya and that, over time, things will work out successfully there.

“People are frankly … overexcited or energized about the longer-term challenge in Libya. I don’t think it’s that big a deal, frankly,” Kerry said at a forum in Washington on April 12. “We shouldn’t worry that much because, over time, Qadhafi’s position has to deteriorate. His oil cannot be sold. His ability to rearm is constrained. So I just don’t get that agitated personally I think there are bigger issues in the Middle East to be working on while this kind of plays out. … We have to just learn how to be patient.”

Patience is not likely to come from those who felt strongly we shouldn’t be engaged in Libya in the first place.

“I think it’s a big mistake and it’s a very bad precedent to allow a to be fought with no vote in Congress,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said at a policy luncheon this week in his home state. “Now, it also shows you the hypocrisy of the way politics goes. Many on the left criticized Bush to no end about the Iraq war. In fact, I wasn’t in favor of going to Iraq. But at the very least, Bush came to Congress and we voted before going to Afghanistan and Congress voted before going to Iraq.”

But Gelb says he’s heard nothing from Obama’s critics that amounts to a smart and specific plan about what the U.S. should be doing differently right now. “Nobody’s got a sensible proposal. I haven’t heard one anyway. I’ve heard a lot of complaints and warnings,” Gelb said. “I would just hang in here.”