*This article was originally published in The Topeka Capital-Journal, June 25, 2016.
In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, Vice President Joe Biden touted his opposition to the NATO-led intervention in Libya and the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi: “My question was: ‘OK, tell me what happens. He’s gone. What happens? Doesn’t the country disintegrate?’” Biden went on to call Libya a “Petri dish for the growth of extremism.” This is a stark divergence from Hillary Clinton, who called the intervention “smart power at its best.”
Who’s right? While it’s true that Libya has become a bloody vortex of terrorism, factionalism and lawlessness since 2011, Clinton is. The carnage in Libya doesn’t vindicate Biden or anyone else who thinks the U.S. is responsible for everything that has occurred since the air campaign.
American policymakers have a strange habit of drawing a straight line from their actions to major shifts in the international landscape. This is what The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg calls the “Carly Simon Syndrome, which is an affliction affecting American policymakers so vain that they probably think Islamist extremism, and everything else, is about them.” Unlike Clinton, Biden appears to have an acute case of the Carly Simon Syndrome when it comes to Libya.
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