Obama:Libya::Bush:Iraq…Or Not

Watching the Libyan conflict unfold is a study in contrasts. Consider the differences between the invasion of Iraq under President Bush and the attack on Libya under President Obama. The differences between the two presidents and the response to their actions has been rather stark.

Months before the actual invasion of Iraq began, President Bush brought his argument to the American people, using speeches, interviews, and his administration writing editorials for various news sources. President Bush tried to convince the American people of the necessity of his plan and why.

By contrast, President Obama went to the UN and started taking action. He did not seek to convince anyone in the public of what he was doing, nor gain public support.

President Bush sought congressional approval for his military efforts, while President Obama did not even seem to consider it. In fact, he recently released a statement declaring such approval was unnecessary. President Bush led the way, going to the UN to build a coalition of dozens of nations from nearly every continent on earth. President Obama went to the UN in response to bold leadership by the United Kingdom and France, waiting until someone else took the initiative.

Protesters began large, repeated, and loud protests against President Bush long before any actual military action took place. By contrast, protesters only started to complain about President Obama after the attacks had started, and they are not only few in number but scattered. International A.N.S.W.E.R. has not staged huge rent-a-mob protests in any country.

When this conflict began, there were 100 protesters out front of the White House…holding a rally over the 8th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.

Meanwhile, President Bush was called a cowboy, a rash, warmongering extremist leading the nation into a Vietnam-like quagmire, while President Obama is being praised for his diplomatic skills in getting so swift an agreement to US action.

Read the whole thing.

Meanwhile, Obama continues to take swipes at President Bush on Iraq, even though Candidate Obama and Candidate Biden think President Obama’s unilateralism (as in not seeking Congressional approval) on Libya is unconstitutional (Pelosi too; and Biden even thinks he should be impeached!), and even though “the reviled ‘unilateralist’ George W. Bush lined up twice as many allies to support his invasion of Iraq as Obama has participating in the Libyan venture,” as John Hinderaker puts it. (A coalition, mind you, that is already falling apart.) I agree with this other statement of his as well…

So–like many conservatives, I suspect–I am simultaneously supporting our military effort and rooting for its success, while also enjoying the contradictions and disarray it gives rise to among Democrats in the administration, in Congress, and in the press.

…in conjunction with Victor Davis Hanson’s points on the topic.

(By the way, I disagree with Candidates Obama and Biden. I think the President’s actions are constitutional but that he has a responsibility to explain the mission to the American people and lay out the goals of our intervention in Libya as well as our strategy for achieving those goals. Along the lines of what Speaker Boehner requests in a letter to the President.)

There’s also this reaction by an Instapundit reader:

For eight long years, well-meaning people on the right have been accused of all manner of hate, dishonesty, stupidity, and wickedness, from a bunch of people who believe their own neighbors are the primary cause of suffering in the world…

Since the bombing started, I’ve made a mental note to keep my eye out for my Facebook friends to chime in about Libya. I know they’re not bashful about political subjects; every five minutes they post another link to another story about the plight of those poor teachers’ unions in Wisconsin, or poor, poor NPR and the threat from those GOP meanies. So far, since the bombing started on Saturday, I’ve counted a grand total of one post about Libya, and even it was on the subject of missing journalists. I can barely contain my disgust.

And perhaps most importantly, this comment by Michael Rubin:

There are lots of reasons to criticize Obama for the Libya thing, but the most important is never mentioned: it’s the wrong battlefield. The battlefields that will determine the outcome of the big war are Tehran and Damascus, and there are ongoing battles on both. We could make a decisive difference, without bombing anything, without risking any American lives, just by giving political and perhaps some financial and technological support to the Iranian and Syrian rebellions. The tyrannical regimes are hollow, the people have demonstrated great courage, and if — as I keep hearing — we have gone to war in Libya in support of people who are fighting for their freedom against evil dictators, all the more reason to support the Iranians and Syrians, who are fighting against killers of even more Americans than Qadaffi has killed.

And John Hinderaker hits it out of the park with this comment: “I’m beginning to understand why liberals believe so fervently in a ‘living’ Constitution. They need it to change from year to year, depending on who is in office.”

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