Foxmeister said:
As someone who works in the intelligence community, I have to ask you where do you get the idea we failed?
Obama should have begun the planning of getting US personnel out of Libya as soon as the protests began. Getting them out should have begun as soon as it appeared events were going to escalate, just as the Brits and others did.
The events occuring in Libya and other Arab nations are causing oil prices to quickly rise as speculators see pretty much nothing but gloom and doom for the near future. This in turn is causing our fuel prices to increase as well as retail prices.
The continuation of these events are going to play havoc with our economy the longer they last. The president needs to lift his moritorium to allow offshore drilling to begin once again. He needs to allow access to US oil companies to drill from deposits where they are currently prohibited to do so. We need to quickly increase our domestic oil production and urge the Saudis to do the same if we want to prevent the economy from going into a deeper recession.
There's lots the president should be doing, but I really don't think he cares.
Unless ALL of the reports are incorrect, the intelligence community failed to predict the revolts in North Africa. Had they done so, we could have perhaps worked to ease the transition, perhaps not. But we would have had diplomatic options that we don't now have. We would have also had more time to plan to remove our people.
I do think he has far more interest in his domestic policy than foreign policy, which he quite frankly seems to delegate more easily, and I think that works in our favor because his rhetoric is apologetic pacifist but his policy is quite in line with previous administrations. But I really don't see what he could or should do different at this point in North Africa. Our people are out, after a cluster eff admittedly, but they are out, and the base in Bahrain appears to be safe. We can't go riding in like John Wayne into every two bit dictatorship and take over because we don't agree with a country's politics or because we wish for a peaceful transition of power to a potentially more friendly brand. It's a sovereign nation. That would be putting ideology in the way of practicality, a formula sure to fail.
As for oil prices, it is baseless speculation at this point. Not one drop of US oil is in real jeopardy, and it appears that not one drop of oil period will be reduced. Bernanke has a far more active role in setting oil prices through dollar devaluation than a piss ant dictator in a country that produced 2% of the world's oil in an environment of 10% excess capacity. Like I said, this will all change if Saudi Arabia becomes involved, and that's where our efforts should be concentrated. I hope they are. In this case we can be proactive instead of reactionary, and perhaps protect our true economic and defense needs in the region.
BTW, a deep drilling permit was issued today, although I don't think it was related to Africa. It appears to be in response to political pressure and the fact that the Administration has been on the losing end in court. I agree it's about time.
