Washington, March 18: Sen. Dick Lugar seems to be channeling Barack Obama circa 2002 with his repeated admonitions for the president to “avoid the mistakes of the past” and seek congressional guidance before engaging in military actions against Libya.
Over the last two days, the Indiana Republican has been one of the lone voices cautioning against military engagement, even in light of a worsening situation for rebel forces in Libya. He wants Obama to sidestep the precedent that President Bush set with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, by coming to Congress for a real declaration of war.
“I am doubtful that U.S. interests would be served by imposing a no-fly zone over Libya,” Lugar repeated Thursday at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing. “In this broad context, if the Obama administration decides to impose a no-fly zone or take other significant military action in Libya, I believe it should first seek a congressional debate on a declaration of war under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.”
The request is somewhat dissonant amid calls for imminent action to prevent a human rights catastrophe in Libya. But the sentiment is strikingly similar to the one Obama expressed in a raw 2002 speech against the Iraq war — a conflict for which Bush didn’t seek congressional approval — which he famously dubbed as “dumb.”
“The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable,” Obama said then. “We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not – we will not – travel down that hellish path blindly.”
Lugar and Obama are not exactly estranged. They have a history from Obama’s first term as a freshman senator on the Foreign Relations Committee, during which time, as Obama has documented in his memoir “The Audacity of Hope,” the two bonded during a trip to Russia on nuclear disarmament. And their relationship is notably one of the few friendly and productive ones the president has cultivated with congressional Republicans.
But according to Lugar’s spokesman, he isn’t aware that the senator or Obama have spoken on this subject, nor that Lugar has spoken to Obama’s aides about the need for advice and consent when it comes to military action in Libya.
At the hearing on Thursday, Bill Burns, the undersecretary for public affairs at the State Department, was asked repeatedly whether military action in Libya would warrant congressional approval. And each time, he told the senators that he couldn’t provide a yes or no answer to that question.
–Agencies