The NY Times report on CIA operatives on Libyan ground tends to reinforce my earlier speculation, of March 20, that President Obama's more manifest efforts have concealed a cunning strategy.
From the Times: "[S]mall groups of C.I.A. operatives have been working in Libya for several weeks [my emphasis] as part of a shadow force of Westerners that the Obama administration hopes can help bleed Colonel Qaddafi’s military....
"In addition, the American spies are meeting with rebels to try to fill in gaps in understanding who their leaders are and the allegiances of the groups...."
I repost "A huge hidden motive, overlooked," from Sunday, March 20, and have italicized the specially relevant passages for your convenience:
Richard Haass, who is using his stint as president of the Council on Foreign Relations as the first in his 12-step recovery program of Bushies Anonymous, made a powerful case on "Meet the Press" this morning against American intervention in Libya. To distill his varied concerns, I'd say Haass's overall worry is that of the United States missing the clicheish "big picture"; that Libya is of little strategic interest, that its oil reserves as a percentage of the world's are minor, that this is a civil war whose future we can't fathom, and so on -- all billowing up to his central point: By concentrating on Libya, we're missing not only the big picture, but the bigger picture.
David Gregory, who is using his stint as host of "MTP" as the first in his 12-step recovery program of Lazy Journalists Anonymous (Gregory's indignation at Scott McClellan's What Happened, which charged White House journalists of the W. era with near criminal negligence, was truly a sight to behold), visibly thrilled at Haass' pushback on the Obama administration. (My apologies for this hateful paragraph. But I've reserved in my heart a special place of resentment toward David Gregory ever since I witnessed his phony outrage at McClellan's intensely obvious accusation -- Why, we were constantly querying the Bush administration, how dare McClellan question our professionalism, responded a truth-hurt Gregory.)
At any rate, Haass' case was so powerful, it retriggered in my mind the countervailingly powerful observation of: President Obama knows all that, he weighed those factors, and he cannot have possibly mistaken a miniature for a broad canvass; so why the shift, what bigger big picture, which Haass is in fact missing, could he have in mind?
My speculation is this: Obama's intervention has little to do with Libya, but a lot to do with American counterpropaganda efforts against al Qaeda. Our intervention on the side of Libyan insurrectionist forces, which may very well contain Qaeda associates, could eviscerate the latter's anti-American street cred.
Reported the Wall Street Journal on Friday: "Groups such as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb are active in Algeria and other countries in the region and have sought to bolster the opposition to Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi." Indeed, how embarrassing for al Qaeda as it finds itself fighting in cahoots with rebels that a U.S.-U.N. coalition is attempting to rescue from otherwise certain slaughter? The Western propaganda value of such odd bedfellows is, as they say, priceless.
White House counter-terrorism official John Brennan "told reporters Friday that the U.S. is trying to make sure that 'the terrorist elements' active in the region don’t 'take advantage of the situation,' " adding that "the U.S. recognizes that some leaders of the Libyan rebellion are simply trying to throw off 'the yoke' of dictatorship, and the Obama administration wants to work with those people."
I'll bet. And "those people" will not only be more receptive to Western influence in the wake of a successful revolution, their would-be Qaeda comrades will have American-provided egg all over their red faces.
Obama is always a step -- or miles -- ahead of his critics. Neoconservatives would have somehow antagonized the rebellious forces, and thereby would have pleased any associated terrorist forces. Instead, Obama has essentially embraced the lot of them.
After Libya, marketing the United States as the Great Satan of the Middle East will be al Qaeda's most unbelievable challenge.