By Stephen Dick
CNHI News Service

President Obama inherited a foreign policy of cowboy jingoism and xenophobia and has been slowly trying to remake the policy as more rational and humane. He’s done a lot of backtracking and kept the fight in Afghanistan going far too long, but to conservatives his lack of chest-puffing military worship is a sign of weakness.

As the situation in Libya turns in favor of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, conservative dogs of war are growling for the U.S. to take a military role, even if it’s just establishing a no-fly zone, which would actually be a major military operation. What they really want, though, is what they wanted in Iraq: to take down a dictator they don’t like, in this case Gadhafi, which the U.S. has tolerated for 41 years.

Obama should resist this right-wing call to war and consider the source, which is a bunch of yahoos who think the greatest good is military action. They were wrong about everything concerning Iraq and Afghanistan, and they are eager to be wrong again. Obama has already taken unilateral military action off the table, but he’s consulting with allies about whether to aid the rebels.

A unilateral attack on Libya would be disastrous for the U.S. Haven’t these neocons — who never served in the military — learned anything with Iraq and Afghanistan?

If the U.S. was successful in deposing Gadhafi, the military would have to go in and set up a provisional government, which the people would surely hate as they do in Iraq and under CIA hack Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan.

What if Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia had resisted and turned the military on the protesters? Would conservatives want U.S. involvement in all of those countries? Not necessarily. With Gadhafi, it’s a matter of hatred and revenge, as it was for Saddam Hussein. Gadhafi was behind the bombing of the jet in Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, and has never stopped thumbing his nose at the U.S. Also, right-wing deity Ronald Reagan once called Gadhafi a terrorist.

A recent USA Today article said that a window of opportunity is closing in Libya as Gadhafi is gaining the upper hand. What nonsense. The long-term consequences are never discussed, and everyone on the right thinks, as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the people are waiting to cheer on U.S. soldiers and install a democracy posthaste.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and Obama knows this. If the United Nations deems it important enough to help the rebels overthrow Gadhafi, and an international force is assembled, it would be fitting for the U.S. to participate. But not until then.

U.S. conservatives have no scruples when it comes to American soldiers dying for their idiotic ideology. And make no mistake, a Libyan involvement would soon mean boots on the ground. There are no scruples, too, adding to the deficit with more war costs. The hypocrisy and stupidity of American warmongers is breathless to behold.

In a related matter, oil companies have been using the unrest in Libya to raise gas prices. Though Libya is the 12th largest provider of oil, and Saudi Arabia agreed to produce more to offset a decrease in Libyan oil, there are profits to be made by inserting fake fear in the marketplace. This is what oil companies do best: use any excuse to rip people off.

Stephen Dick writes for The Herald Bulletin in Anderson, Ind. He can be reached at steve.dick@heraldbulletin.com. CNHI News Service distributes his column.