Libya and Kosovo

Comparing the speeches between President Clinton and President Obama drew many similarities.  First, both stated that the United States needed to protect thousands of civilians because it was morally right.  Both Presidents say that by acting, the United States will uphold its values and interests.  President Obama and Clinton also make the point that the Untied States has a compelling interest because if massacre’s occurred in both regions, there could be a spillover in other regions.  Another similarity is that both Presidents made it clear that they were not acting alone.  The United States is acting with its partners and allies.  For example, President Obama states that the Arab league asked the U.S. to enter the fight.  Both Presidents seem to stress throughout their speech on why entering these conflicts matter to America.  While both Presidents state that there would be a spillover into other countries, Obama and Clinton have different reasons.  For Obama, If Gaddaffi overran the rebels and started killing thousands; additional refugees across Libya would flee into other countries that are going through a transition such as Egypt and Tunisia.  Also, President Obama explains that if the United States sat back and watched thousands of civilians die, that would give the impression to other leaders in that region that killing to suppress protests is acceptable.  President Clinton makes the point that if we did not enter, then Kosovo would spill into a wider war, and therefore threatening other democratic nations.  As far as a doctrine from both Presidents, I see that Obama and Clinton act with its allies, and if allies are not involved, then they want no part of intervention.  Besides the allies point I just made, I would say that both Presidents do not really have a doctrine because prior incidents contradict them.  For instance, Clinton would not enter Rwanda when clearly genocide was occurring.  If President Clinton wanted to protect civilians, why not enter that country?  Also, in 1993 why did Clinton pull U.S. troops out of Somalia even though many civilians were being starved and killed?  Shouldn’t he have protected the civilians on a moral ground?  For Obama, he wants to protect civilians and uphold democracy.  If that were the case, then why not enter Yemen?  The Yemen President has been killing more civilians than Gaddaffi?  The same situation with Syria because the Syrian President is killing civilians and on top of that is aligned with Iran.  The father of the Syrian President slaughtered 20,000 civilians in the early 1980s; why should we not think his son would do the same?  If the United States is going to enter Libya (which is not a threat to our national security), I think we should enter Syria.  Syria is a terrorist facilitator and a brutal regime.  If we removed Assad from power, this could shift the balance of power in terms of Iran.   Both actions by the President do not seem to make sense for the reasons I have stated.  Also, there are critics of President Clinton that state he entered Kosovo to keep the attention off the Monica Lewinsky scandal; therefore it could have been politically motivated. For President Obama, there have been many calls for him to intervene earlier, and if he did not, people would look at him as a weak President.  On the other hand, economically entering the conflict would not make sense because of all the debt the U.S. has.  Therefore I am not certain that there were political motivations for President Obama.  Having said all of that, I understand that Clinton and Obama entered these conflicts to protect civilians, and therefore I do believe that our role is justifiable.   However, to try and identify a doctrine is useless and I find both Presidents to be hypocritical for the reasons I have stated above.  Frankly, both Presidents leave me confused about what role the United States should have throughout the world.