Unilateralism is awesome!
Not sure? Just ask former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been busy trumpeting the Bush administration’s accomplishments while promoting his new memoir.
So it was with that presumption that Cheney sat down with the fine folks at Fox and Friends to discuss if President Obama’s strategy of “leading from behind” was all that effective in Libya. Never mind that the Libyan rebels — aided by NATO coalition forces — have essentially deposed Col. Muammar Qaddafi, or that it was the U.S. who insisted NATO allies adopt a more robust military response to Libya. Cheney is “skeptical” of coalitions.
“The fact of the matters is, when difficult things have to be done in the world, it’s usually the United States that leads them,” he said. Hoping that “somebody else” will step up and take the leadership role is a “mistaken notion,” he added. Here’s more from Fox:
“I think that’s a mistaken notion … we just lay back, say ‘please, please, pretty please’ to everybody else out there, that somehow they’ll step up,” he said. “There isn’t anybody else who can do it long term except the United States, and I think that would be a mistake to take the Libyan experience and now say that’s a model you can follow in all crises.”
But wait, isn’t this the same Dick Cheney who as Secretary of Defense oversaw Operation Desert Storm — a war officially waged by a coalition of 32 nations?
Watch the video (key moment starts at 4:00):
