Libya is liberated, and Moammar Gadhafi has gone into hiding.
It would appear that the final rout of the Libyan rebels justified President Obama's foreign policy of "kinetic military action" in the civil war.
On the contrary, his unconstitional, and wasteful, foray of American Armed forces is a mere accidental within the wider scheme of British and French pressure, combined with the flagging moral of Loyalist forces who could no longer stem the Arab Spring that has already swept through the neighboring states of Tunisia and Egypt.
President Obama overstretched his powers as Commander in Chief, failing to report or request permission to send American military personnel into the region. The ends do not justify the means.
He insisted that our entry into the North African theater would merely maintain humanitarian protection of the Benghazi stronghold and the rebels safeguarded there. Yet Obama's confused policy did nothing to clarify how our presence was advancing the ouster of Gadhafi and Sons while not targeting them directly-- while yet also bombing their Tripoli compound.
Obama's actions for armed engagement never matched up with his liberal-internationalist rhetoric of coalition reliance, including the increasingly irrelevant NATO. We still committed blood and treasure to another conflict which never fell within the scope of the United States' strategic interest.
And what impact did our forces ultimately play in the Libyan civil war? No matter how strenuously President Obama insists that his warped half-measures hastened victory of the rebels, the world is reeling from the sudden turn of events, bringing down the longest-reigning dictator in the Middle East.
Even if the President can spin the transition of power to the rebels as a plus, he will never be able to shake off the failed domestic policies which have alienated his base and independents, nor his economic agenda, which has merely stalled a recovery which free market forces would have more quickly and efficiently ushered in.
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