by Kim Ghattas
“I wouldn’t claim that all eight who were at the table tonight are exactly in the same place. As you know, the French have already recognized the opposition, some were more forward-leaning about a no-fly zone or the use of force than others, there’s no doubt. But at the same time they all shared a sense of urgency. The ministers spoke very passionately about what is happening and the need for us to move as quickly as possible to accomplish these goals.”
“But this has been going on for weeks!” Matt from the AP interjected.
“But there’s another set of principles that’s also very important to have on the table,” the official replied, “which is not to act without regional support.”
“But you have regional support!” Matt said. “You have the Arab League, you have the GCC. It may not be spelled out exactly the way you would like it but…” A loud, nasal American female voice from a table nearby drowned out the rest.
“That’s precisely why the secretary asked for clarifications,” the official butted in. “So that when the Security Council takes this up, we understands exactly what it is we’re talking about.”
A chorus of voices interrupted him, all talking over each other but all saying the same thing.
“It sounds like nobody wants to do this.”
The first official paused, a frustrated look on his face. The second one pursed his lips. The third stared at his two colleagues.
“People don’t want to take action based on a misunderstanding,” volunteered the first official. He explained it was important to have more than just vague regional support. But what did that support actually mean? What were they not telling us? These briefings were key to helping us understand the context of what was happening behind the scenes but also to get a sense of where things were going. For the officials, it often seemed like agony, worse than the daily grilling at the lectern in Washington. They wanted to make sure they gave us their version of history in the making, but there was only so much they could tell us. Diplomacy didn’t flourish in the limelight. Their guarded statements left big blanks that we filled with our own conclusions. In this case, it made the Americans look reluctant to do anything for the Libyans beyond issue statements and wait for someone else to deal with Gaddafi.
“Well, this sense of urgency you talk about doesn’t seem to exist,” said Matt. “No one is going to do anything about this, except talk more about it and stay in nine-hundred-euro hotel rooms in various world capitals.”
It was almost one thirty in the morning—dinnertime in Washington. We ordered more drinks, got more salted almonds, and prodded further.
“Why are you still trying to figure out what a no-fly zone entails. Isn’t that obvious?” asked Elise Labott from CNN.
“What would constitute clear support from the Arab League?” I asked. “They have never called for any sort of military action against another Arab country. What more do you want? Do you want Arab military involvement?”
There was a long silence filled by the bar chatter, which suddenly sounded deafening. Twenty seconds passed.
“Whatever action is taken we are asking them to take the lead in carrying it out,” replied the second official. “For the United States or NATO or France to carry out any military action without clear regional support poses significant risks that everyone in this room fully understands,” he went on. “Past no-fly zones have required significant military action.”
A no-fly zone, they explained, had to be enforced. If anyone sent planes over Libya, Gaddafi would try to bring them down, so you first had to take out his air defenses. Nonanswer answers were a classic play by American officials. He hadn’t confirmed they were seeking Arab military participation, but he hadn’t denied it either. So we were onto something. But why did the United States want Arab military involvement? To do what?
* * *
Just as we were sitting down with the officials in the bar around midnight, high up on the secure floor, past the marines standing sentry in the hallway, Molly and Andrew were putting the final touches on the daily briefing book for the secretary’s meetings for the following day in Paris and then Cairo. Thirty mini-schedules had been printed out, cut, and stapled. The two hungry young officers had had enough of eating beef jerky; it was time for real French food. They headed out to Montmartre, betting they could find late dining in the lively, artistic neighborhood. A couple of steak frites and a few glasses of wine later, back at the Westin Hotel, Molly collapsed in her bed at two in the morning and closed her eyes for the first time in thirty-eight hours. Ten minutes later, she half opened them, brought her BlackBerry closer to her face, and glanced at her e-mails. She closed her eyes again, her BlackBerry still in her hand. No one ever slept deeply on these trips. Half an hour later, with her thumb she clicked the scroll button, lighting up the screen of her mobile device. All was quiet.
At four in the morning, the dim light shone again on Molly’s face. Her eyes opened wide. A cascade of OPS alerts, with bad news from Japan. There had been a third blast at a reactor of the Fukushima plant, the U.S. Navy was repositioning ships after detecting airborne radioactivity, the United States was considering evacuating thousands of American citizens, and a fire had broken out in a cooling pond at one of the reactors. Molly called Andrew. Five minutes later, they were back in the office. Clinton was meeting the Japanese foreign minister at eight thirty in the morning at the Hotel Le Meurice, a short walk around the corner from the Westin. The daily Book had to be redone.
The United States had been very sensitive about the guidance it was giving to citizens and military personnel so as not to offend Japan, which was downplaying all the risks. Now it was clear how overwhelmed Japan was. No one was really in charge. The United States wasn’t going to wait to be asked for help, it was time to step in. The dangers of a nuclear catastrophe were too big, the consequences dire for hundreds of thousands of people in Japan and beyond. In the morning, Clinton went to the Meurice and had her meeting with the Japanese foreign minister. In public, all the statements were about total support for Japan and its people. In private the message was tougher: get your act together.
Off we went to Cairo.
* * *
At the Egyptian foreign ministry, Clinton was meeting the new man in charge, Nabil Elaraby. The last time we had been in Cairo, Clinton had stood next to Aboul Gheit. She had just met Mubarak, and they had talked about peace and settlements in front of a small crowd of journalists. This time, around a hundred journalists were crushed into a room, and cameramen were pushing and shoving trying to set up their tripods. The wait was long and the room overheated. I headed out for some fresh air.
Outside, inveterate smokers were lighting up cigarette after cigarette.
“How come so many people are attending this press conference?” I asked one of the Egyptian reporters. “Do you still care what America has to say?”
The man stared at me, incredulous. “It’s America!”
Inside, on an improvised desk, the advance line officer for the Cairo stop had set up a laptop and printer to print out the latest version of the remarks Clinton would be giving shortly. He was waiting for final clearance from Washington—everyone with a say on Egypt had to sign off on the document. The Wi-Fi Internet was acting up, and the e-mail just wasn’t landing. The remarks had to be waiting for her on the lectern as she walked out of her meeting. She was going to praise the Egyptians for what they had achieved in Tahrir Square and tell them repeatedly that this moment in history belonged to them, that they had broken barriers and overcome obstacles to pursue the dream of democracy—and the United States stood by them.
* * *
There was still some convincing to do. A number of democracy activists who had been part of the uprising had been invited to meet Clinton at her hotel and a handful had refused, still resentful over her January 25 comment about Egypt being stable. The revolution had started long before that date in their hearts, and they couldn’t forgive America for weighing interests and values before speaking o
ut. Clinton asked those in the meeting, including Asmaa Mahfouz, the woman who had spurred mass demonstrations with her YouTube video, how they were preparing for the upcoming parliamentary elections. She was stunned when they told her they were revolutionaries; they “didn’t do politics.” They believed that the momentum and emotions of the revolution would win the day at the ballot box. On this occasion, Hillary’s instincts as a politician were the right ones, and the naive activists would soon find themselves outmaneuvered by the well-organized Muslim Brotherhood and even the remnants of Mubarak’s ruling party.
* * *
In the morning she had more meetings, with the army generals, the defense minister, and civil society representatives, and she took a walk around revolution central—Tahrir Square. The crowds were gone and traffic was back, but Hillary still found it emotional to see the square with her own eyes. She then had to deal with Pakistan. An agreement had been reached with Islamabad, and CIA contractor Raymond Davis was being released from jail. Then interviews. On every trip, Clinton gave interviews to the television reporters with her on the plane. Sitting in a hotel room that had been transformed into a makeshift television set, Clinton would subject herself to the interviews back-to-back, with barely a few minutes to spare between them.
I sat down and started grilling her. Was the United States going to support action at the UN? Did the United States want a no-fly zone? Were the Arabs going to participate? Even the French and the British were getting frustrated. Why was the United States dillydallying?
Clinton said there were many ways to help the Libyan people; they had to make sure that a resolution was carefully crafted so it didn’t get vetoed. She insisted the United States was on the same page as its allies. Her answers felt like they amounted to nothing. I pushed further.
“Gaddafi’s forces are advancing on Benghazi. The rebels seem to be losing ground day by day, perhaps hour by hour. If Benghazi falls to Colonel Gaddafi because the United States was seen to take its time deliberating, history won’t judge the Obama administration very kindly, will it?”
Clinton sat still, her face impassive.
“The United States under President Obama is engaged in numerous efforts around the world to ensure peace and stability. It is important that no one sees the United States acting unilaterally. This is what we were criticized for in the not-so-distant past … But I believe that we are moving in the right direction and that hopefully there will be a consensus and the United States will be part of that consensus.”
I wondered whether the United States was shirking its responsibilities. I understood the reluctance to go to war, but I was still perplexed by this apparent lack of urgency.
* * *
Sitting down with Clinton for the cameras, I didn’t know that the day before, around ten in the evening while my colleagues and I were having dinner in the restaurant hotel overlooking the Nile, the secretary had been on the phone to the White House with her checklist. From her hotel suite, on a secure line, she had joined a National Security Council meeting in the Situation Room: President Obama, Robert Gates, Vice President Joe Biden, Mike Mullen, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Susan Rice on videoconference line from the UN, and others.
Obama was trying to get American troops out of Afghanistan and out of Iraq—two Muslim countries where the presence of infidels in camouflage continually stoked anti-American sentiment. A war in a third Muslim country, with American jets in the sky, was the last thing he wanted. Libyan rebels were clamoring for America to save them, but around the world, saviors turned into occupiers or oppressors very quickly. For weeks now, different options had been weighed, all the military and diplomatic scenarios carefully scrutinized. Gates was a quiet, reticent man; he was fed up with what he described as “loose talk” about a no-fly zone. People just didn’t think through what this meant and what was needed to make it happen: the U.S. military would first have to take out Gaddafi’s air defenses. America would be going to war again. Together with the vice president and Mullen, he argued against action.
In Paris, Hillary had checked all her boxes; she knew how she would proceed. In general, whenever she wanted to make her case, she didn’t necessarily state her objective explicitly. Instead, she would lay out the facts with a slant toward the conclusion she wanted to reach. By the time she was done with her presentation, her interlocutor could see things from her perspective. This was how she handled her foreign counterparts; it was how she went into the meeting with the president. As usual, he wanted to know from her what and who she could deliver.
She laid out what she had heard in Paris. Sarkozy was intent on having his war. He wanted a no-fly zone. The British also wanted action. They were going to push a resolution at the UN for a no-fly zone. But she had told them such a move wasn’t going to make a real difference, and she had spent time assessing their intentions. Did they just want to take their fighter jets out for a spin so they could feel good about themselves, or were they ready to stick it out and do things right? She had spoken to the Arabs and gotten their commitment that they would contribute military assets and would not get squeamish after the first shots were fired. She had sat down with the Libyan opposition chief and assessed what kind of leadership he offered for the Libya of tomorrow.
Obama was also convinced that a no-fly zone would not cut it. America could feel good about being on the right side of history, but people would still get killed. Not acting was not an option; it could affect America’s long-term interests in the region and set a terrible example for Arab leaders who might take U.S. inaction as an inability to act. They might deduce that they could kill their people with no consequences whatsoever. Clinton made clear that a vote was going to take place in New York—the United States could either lead or be led.
“Let’s drive this,” she said. Susan Rice chimed in. She already had a draft for a tougher resolution that went beyond a no-fly zone and included a call for “all necessary measures” to protect civilians. All necessary measures meant that the United States and its allies would be able to actively impede the advance of Gaddafi’s force and strike them from the air. This was well beyond just a sky patrol. Clinton had set the stage about a discussion for broad action. After the call ended, others, like Samantha Power, chimed in, telling Obama to go for the “all necessary measures” option.
Obama asked the military to present him with more detailed plans. When they all reconvened a few hours later, Clinton was fast asleep in Cairo, where it was four in the morning. She was represented at the table by one of her deputies, Jim Steinberg, with orders to say yes to “all necessary measures.” The president was given the details of the three options available: no action, no-fly zone, or all necessary measures. He went for the last one.
* * *
Later, I also came to understand the extent to which the United States was worried that it could enter this battle, believing the Arabs and Europeans were securing its flanks, only to find itself alone on the front line with everyone hanging back. What guarantees did it have that, once the strikes started, the region’s rulers wouldn’t publicly wash their hands of the operation and condemn the deaths of Muslims at the hands of the American bully?
Washington had in the past openly, publicly, and very loudly driven the process of building a coalition to drive out an invader or stop a massacre, but this was a new style of American leadership—a more modest one, one that made it possible for unlikely partners, such as the Arab League, to cooperate with Washington. The shadow of the Iraq War was ever present. To a world unaccustomed to a silent superpower, this nuanced diplomacy gave the impression that the United States was reluctant. The United States was reluctant: to get burned alone. It was time for Europe to grow up and assume its share of responsibilities, and it was time for Arab leaders to develop a spine.
So Washington kept its cards close to its chest. American officials didn’t want to make any statements that would allow others to suddenly sit back and push America to the front. If the United States was suddenly
seen leading a war effort, it would undermine the careful work being done at the UN and, more crucially, it could scare the Arabs away. But the silence meant that Clinton and Obama were being harshly criticized for not helping to stop an impending massacre.
* * *
We flew into the might from Cairo to Tunis, over the Mediterranean, steering clear of Libyan airspace and a country at war. The flight path on our screen showed Benghazi, just south of the plane. Hillary had been given her own stapler, which sat on her desk in her cabin with the words The Secretary taped on it. There hadn’t been much time to think of Tunisia yet. The line officers had asked the Building for talking points ahead of the town hall in Tunis. They wanted to know what young people in Tunisia wanted to hear from the secretary. Instead, they got vague, outdated generalities. Molly, Andrew, and Jake got to work on the plane rewording all the documents. Molly felt like the world was ending. If America’s bureaucracy had reached its limit, there was no hope for others.
Our stop in Tunis was the usual Hillary template: official meetings and public diplomacy. But the real action was taking place on the phone, away from our prying ears. Earlier in the day, the operations center had sent an update about the secretary’s communications to her close aides.
From: OPS Alert
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 5:41 AM
To:
Subject: The Secretary has requested to speak with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov
Then seven hours later, as she stepped off the stage at the end of a town hall, Jake handed her a cell phone.
From: OPS
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 1:09 PM
To:
Subject: The Secretary is speaking with Russian FM Lavrov
Clinton needed to make sure Russia wasn’t going to veto the resolution. She had told Lavrov that if Gaddafi was crazy before, he was only going to get worse if international pressure was suddenly lifted. The clampdown had to continue, and this resolution was the next step.