Benghazi in context

I have the luxury of being unimportant; therefore, I'll say something probably offensive.

Am I missing something? As I reexamine the foreign policy record of President Obama, I see a number of successes. Failures may depend upon your beliefs about "just wars", and perhaps less visible concerns regarding trade. (It's unclear what the long-term effects will be with fights with China over tires and other issues.)

From what I have read, the assault on the consulate at Benghazi appears to have been an intelligence failure. I don't know, and I may never know, precisely how, or why, additional security was not provided. These intelligence failures have existed before - does anyone remember the attacks against US Embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania in 1998? These attacks killed many more people. September 11 was a tremendous intelligence failure -- but I don't recall people calling for the resignation of the President.

Can we wait for the investigation to conclude? If there was such an egregious miscarriage of justice involving the President and senior officials, I'm certain Congress will be happy to embark upon yet another impeachment hearing.

The Benghazi attack was a tragedy. It also led to the death of four people. These were four good people; but they were four. A sane nation cannot afford to make reckless claims about policy reversals and even war for four citizens. Even a great nation cannot afford to be so reckless.

Some perspective: the US and its allies saved thousands of lives, and, depending on how things go, Libyan democracy. It did so without a single American casualty. It did so with Britain and France exercising, at least in recent memory, unprecedented leadership in resources and risk. It may go down as a textbook case of how American interests, ideals, and capacity align, and how measured commitment can produce better (though not perfect) results.

It took thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, and many years for the majority of Americans to even begin to start questioning the justice of the Iraq War. Now, the intervention in Libya, and the overall approach of measured foreign policy of the last years, is seen as illegitimate because of four deaths in Benghazi?

How is this at all proportional?

I accept judgment that to count American lives reeks of the worst of armchair generalship. I accept that the United States has a responsibility to its citizens, and that its diplomatic corps is especially vulnerable and especially valuable.

But it just isn't computing for me -- unless I consider one possibility.

Benghazi has been amplified and magnified because it's difficult to assail the foreign policy record of this administration. Libertarians that believe in zero military intervention, or Niebuhrians/humanitarian interventionists that believe action was merited in Syria (and perhaps Iran in 2009).

Drone strikes are a more valid critique. But they aren't being criticized and magnified because, quite frankly, the killing of civilians in Pakistan by American drone strikes don't matter to the vast majority of constituents in either party, except in the abstract. At best, they are seen as the necessary price of waging a war against Al-Qaeda and terrorism in a state increasingly incapable of providing security to itself or its neighbors.

And there remain issues in Iran. But I don't see how Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shroud would be alive if Tehran had been bombed. Remember them? Was their release after years of incarceration a failure or a success of US diplomacy?

Remember Somali pirates? Remember Osama Bin Laden? Remember the release of hostages in North Korea?

What about the soft power coordination with the European Central Bank to stave off the recession?

Benghazi matters, but not for the reasons so many think.

It matters because it reveals how little effective criticism can be laid against the administration by its GOP opponents, possibly because it is indistinguishable from a realist GOP foreign policy. (It is quite distinguishable from a neoconservative foreign policy; some of the rhetoric suggests a Romney administration would have a chance of exhibiting the former, but the constituency of his foreign policy advisors suggests the latter.)

And it matters especially because it has revealed the tremendous gulf between me and others I know and respect. Their emphasis on Benghazi, ignoring the wider context of Libya, much less four years of foreign policy, makes me question their judgment and objectivity, at least in analyzing these issues.

If someone can explain, reasonably and coherently, how Benghazi invalidates an approach of scaling military responses to a situation and depending upon soft power wherever possible, I will gladly listen, and possibly even change my vote. You can refer me to an article or video, but I'll be far more likely to take your argument seriously if you articulate it yourself.

A note: I'd ask those who feel that military intervention is never justified, or are arguing from a primarily humanitarian interventionist position (esp. re: Syria) to alert me to such in the beginning. I'm not addressing this to you - our assumptions and metrics for acceptable vs. unacceptable intervention may just be too far apart for any fruitful discussion. Just letting you know ahead of time that I may not invest time to deflect those critiques. In all cases, please make sure your assumptions about the ethical nature of the use of force are clearly outlined so I can follow your chain of logic, even if I don't agree with your starting point.