LIBYA: OBAMA; TURKEY

Getting your arms politically and militarily around an ongoing international crisis is no easy task for a President. Libya and President Obama are no exception. Throughout the high speed events in the Arab world since the Tunisian revolution, Obama has had to nuance and adjust his position as events unfolded. It was so with Egypt when the message changed frequently to reflect the ongoing events--support political reform generally, pressure Egyptian President Mubarak on such reform, to finally Mubarak must go with back and forth ambiguities on the message of the day.

The major U.S. dilemma was the bad fit between our rhetoric on political reform and our long time support of Mubarak and some other autocrats in the region determined to preserve their control. Like Egypt, that bad fit also applied to the monarchy in Saudi Arabia who has now distanced himself from Washington because of what is seen as an American propensity to desert its autocratic friends if the occasion demands.

Thus it was with the Obama speech on Libya. On the humanitarian need for intervention he was unequivocal in defending the American commitment to avoid "a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world." I used the term "commitment" and therein lies the rub. What are we committed to beyond the humanitarian goal which set in motion the creation of a no-fly zone, authority to attack Libyan ground forces seen as threatening the humanitarian goal, and an arms embargo? We want Gaddafi out but how far do we go to achieve this? And given our decade long experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, how can we be sure we are not stepping into another sticky mess? These are questions for which, at this point, there can only be ambiguity because no one has the answers. So what we can expect at least in the near term are nuanced refinements on where we stand on a given day about such things as Gaddafi's ouster, and insistence that the U.S. has taken a secondary role in the military intervention and thus can do it on the cheap. Which leads me to a further note on Libya.

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In at least two previous postings, I presented the view that the U.S. must step back throughout the region and let Muslim Turkey take the lead in seeking to restore stability in the Arab world. Given the increasing instability and the lack of trust/confidence in the U.S. in the region, it seems like a good idea to give the Turks a try. Despite the anti-Turkish arrogance of French President Sarkozy , Muslim Turkey has stepped up to the plate with its varying forms of support for the NATO intervention in Libya.

One of its biggest contributions was supporting NATO to take the command role in the military involvement. To do what NATO agreed to do, all 28 members of the alliance had to vote "yes". Turkey, the only predominantly Muslim member of NATO supported the alliance taking the command role while at the same time thwarting Sarkozy's efforts for French leadership, presumably part of his image burnishing for the next French presidential election. The unanimity in approving the basic NATO involvement did not include unanimity on what are the end goals of the intervention.

This doesn't mean that Turkey is okay with the military intervention in Libya. It isn't. Turkey simply does not support such military intervention. It will participate in maintaining the no-fly zone but not any attacks on Gaddafi's ground forces. It has agreed to provide some ships to support the arms embargo, and it will take over the operation of the Benghazi airport to facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid to Libya.

Beyond Libya, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has called Syrian President Assad on several occasions urging the Syrian leader to take a positive role on political reform. Syria may be considering some steps in that direction. If so, these have been overshadowed by Assad's stern repression of protesters. The point here is not to measure the success or failure of Erdogan's efforts in Syria by Assad's actions but simply to illustrate his willingness as the leader of a major Muslim nation in the region to try his hand at resolving a growing problem of Syrian instability. It would certainly seem to advance U.S. interests if political reform or regime change drove a wedge between Syria and the U.S.'s greatest headache in the region, Iran who has been closely allied with Assad on many crucial issues such as support of Hezbollah. What Erdogan has avoided and seems determined to show is that Turkey is acting as a free agent and not a spear carrier for the U.S.

The Arab world is in sufficient shambles, along with U.S. policy there, that we should at least realize that there has got to be another way to achieve political reform and restore regional political stability. The first step should be a diminished U.S. and European (primarily Britain and France) political presence and make way for Muslim-led efforts through Turkey. The question is: Can the U.S., France, and Britain accept such a role? France and Britain have long grown accustomed to waning influence in the Arab world, while always looking for new opportunities to bring back their glory days when they dominated much of north Africa and the Middle East. For the U.S., the world's military superpower, waning influence may not be easily accepted.