Tunisia. Egypt. Libya. These three countries all had revolutions in the past two months. The dominoes of revolution have fallen, but our government wasn’t even aware the game was being played.
Oftentimes, President Barack Obama and his administration responded to these events too little and too late. The federal government sat on the sideline while the entire Middle East fell into chaos.
Saturday, the president issued his first call for Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to step down. A week and a half ago, Obama called for “restraint.” During this time, the Libyan government was blocking the Internet, opening fire on protesters and even bombing the crowds in the streets. It took Obama a week and a half of these events to take a stand on the issue. When things are moving so fast, this seems like an eternity.
As leader of the free world, Obama has to do just that — lead. While disorder has taken hold of the Middle East, our president decided to bide his time. While it may be good politics to always be on the winning side of history, Obama should not have waited until the game was half way over to step in. He should have sided with the ideals synonymous with America: democracy, freedom and liberty.
Gaddafi assumed office in 1969 and has ruled with an iron-fist ever since. He funded acts of terrorism and murdered protesters. By remaining silent, it seems the Obama administration failed to remember these key facts.
The federal government finally took action when it put economic sanctions on Libya. The U.S. froze billions of dollars in American-held assets and closed its embassy in Tripoli. While these sanctions may not do much to deter Gaddafi, they could have come much earlier — the revolution is close to two weeks old and Obama has been largely silent on the issue until the past few days.
The president is largely popular abroad and has considerable sway — not necessarily over the leaders of these countries where the revolutions are happening, but over the younger generation that is rewriting history with these protests.
He seemed to understand this as a candidate. But he may have subsequently lost the notion that America is defined by its ideals on his way to Washington.
“And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright — tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope,” Obama said in his victory speech on election night in 2008.
By remaining silent on this issue for so long, the president has failed to exercise leadership. For a person with such stature and notoriety around the world, we would hope that Obama would push for freedom and democracy and would be a living, breathing symbol of American values.
