‘Obama right in criticising Cameron’s handling of Libya’

“Barack Obama’s criticism of David Cameron’s alleged neglect of Libya in the aftermath of the British-assisted 2011 revolution against Muammar Gaddafi has been blown out of all proportion,” said the Observer in a vigorously defensive editorial. “This largely manufactured furore obscures a more important story: The apparent beginning of Obama’s attempt to explain and justify his often–controversial handling of international affairs, particularly the Middle East, since he took office in 2009,” it said.

In the interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama said Cameron had been “distracted” by other issues after Gaddafi’s fall.

However, the Observer felt that with the interview, Obama appeared to be launching a defence of his presidential legacy a full 10 months before he quits the White House. “Such candour ignores potential problems with allies with whom Obama is still obliged to work. In this respect, David Cameron’s sin in becoming ‘distracted’ from the task of post-Gaddafi reconstruction is small by comparison with the underperformance of others ... The then French president [Nicolas Sarkozy] milked the Anglo-French intervention for all its political worth, while happily limiting Obama to a walk-on part ... As Obama says, Sarkozy was a typical European ‘free rider’ whose grandstanding left Libya in a mess.”

The Independent, on the other hand, justified the US president’s viewpoint, but said in an editorial: “Barack Obama is right to criticise David Cameron’s handling of Libya — but the US should not get off the hook. Western powers, whose 2011 intervention to depose Muammar Gaddafi was critical in reshaping the country, have turned their back on the consequences.”

Arguing that Obama was correct to issue the reprimand for Cameron, the newspaper said: “Obama believes it is his European allies who ‘own’ this mess ... David Cameron stood in front of a crowd in Benghazi in 2011 and said: ‘Your friends in Britain and France will stand with you as you build your democracy’. Such words have proven empty.”

At the same time, it said, in criticising Cameron, Obama was ignoring “the stick in his own eye — or, at least, in the eye of his administration”.

The Times newspaper branded Obama’s criticism as “extraordinary” and noted: “As former Conservative foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind said, it was ‘a bit rich’ for the US president to single out the UK and France, as they had carried out more air operations in the Libya campaign than any other country. Number 10 also said there were ‘many difficult challenges’ in Libya, while the White House said it deeply valued the UK’s contributions.”

In its comment on the controversy, the New York Times acknowledged that the White House’s frustration with the situation in Libya was not new, “but rarely has Obama been so blunt about it”. “He placed his comments in the context of his broader struggle to extract the United States from the bloody morass of the Middle East so that the nation can focus on more promising, faster-growing parts of the world, like Asia and Latin America,” the paper said.