Libya has had to put up with too much from the Arabs for whom it has poured forth both blood and money.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The times of Arab nationalism and unity are gone forever. These ideas which mobilized the masses are only a worthless currency. Libya has had to put up with too much from the Arabs for whom it has poured forth both blood and money.
The situation in Syria is quite different from Libya.
Libyans have to work together for a new Libya. They should keep in place the sinews of security.
What's important in Libya is, first of all, it has a good deal of oil. A lot of the country is unexplored; there may be a lot more. And it's very high-quality oil, so very valuable.
One of the things that has been very difficult in Libya is the sense of uncertainty - the sense that they haven't actually finished the revolution, that there was still a great deal of uncertainty. That uncertainty has made Libya harder for business in terms of oil and other things as well.
It was in our power to set high price for our blood, a price too high for the Arab community, the Arab army, or the Arab governments to think it worth paying.
So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America.
We're not getting involved in terms of sending ground forces into Libya. Let's be clear about that. And indeed the UN Resolution forbids that. It says no foreign occupation of any part of Libya.
We pulled out of Libya. Now look what's happened: a safe haven, a vacuum, ISIS training militants to hit in Tunisia.
The Libyans gave us everything I asked for.