Libya - Obama Presidency Oral History Back Libya Index / Locations Transcripts John Kerry ...the world were playing out, heating up. Libya , which had never settled down from th... Denis McDonough ...around [Muammar al-] Qaddafi and Libya in the first term. How did you come t... ...the president when he asked you about Libya .” And I said, “Yes, you knew my views... ...seems so intense—on Mubarak and then on Libya . I was just looking at the Pete Souz... ...early days of this uprising in Syria, Libya , Tunisia. So the question at tha... ... The trade-off, or the dilemma, in Libya was presumably a little bit different... ...across the northern coast of Libya there going towards Benghazi. And yo... ...with that sentiment, what is it about Libya that becomes so important for the... ...would authorize us ex post facto on Libya . They didn't. Then we got in thi... ...gone. And having just lived through the Libya thing, I think the president's vie... ...absent Congress. So, “You did it in Libya ; why not do it now? You did it o... ...Libya; why not do it now? You did it on Libya and Syria; why are you not doing i... ...the line. And that's precisely what Libya did among other things. He's als... Show more... Hillary Clinton ...assume maybe next time we can get to Libya , because it's a longer— Absolutely... ...—story. But we were dragged into Libya by the Europeans and the Arab states... ...then confronts circumstances in Libya . But I'd like to ask how tha... ...the question of stability. But how was Libya different? Oh, Libya was totall... ...But how was Libya different? Oh, Libya was totally different. [Muammar al-... ...so when people began to rise up in Libya , it was seen as a legitimate risin... ...out of the Arab Spring, and a liberated Libya would be a great outcome. Ben Ali ha... ...Arabia. So let's see what happens in Libya .” Then Qaddafi made it inevitabl... ...to protect the people on the ground in Libya against the onslaught of Qaddafi an... ...various representatives of factions in Libya who wanted to get our support, an... ...to get rid of Qaddafi. He had ruined Libya . On and on. And we decided that w... ...And, as one said to me, “We didn't want Libya to be our Rwanda.” So, if you have ... ...American-led team that would stick with Libya , not come and go, but really work. Th... ...The Libyans I had met—and I went to Libya , went to Tripoli after the end of th... ...in Chris Stevens, who I had sent into Libya before the conflict really erupted an... ...House and State Department. Like, god, Libya is cursed. Stay away from it. We don'... ...was representing the United States in Libya . He did not need to ask permissio... ...which is the far eastern city of Libya that has a long history of contentiou... ...in Egypt, the lessons learned in Libya , the lessons learned in Yemen—wha... ...talk about what we were going to do in Libya , and he took me aside, and he said, “... Show more... Tom Donilon ...surge, but also decisions on Libya . But just broadly speaking, how do yo... ...Putin and Medvedev got crosswise on Libya . So the president—yes. It was ... Antony Blinken ...that point, within a matter of weeks, Libya becomes—my impression is it becomes th... ...decision to use military force in Libya , he calls it a fifty-one, forty-nin... ...weighing in terms of its options in Libya ? Yeah, it was a very intens... ...of Benghazi. We had virtually all of Libya 's neighbors in the Arab Leagu... ...President Biden actually predicted in Libya that we were not able to get a handl... ...in conversations after coming back to Libya and pressing us. You know, “We need t... ...to take action to protect civilians in Libya and Benghazi. It was not to change th... ...that makes—or the thing that makes Libya so fascinating is, all of the element... ...concern, the involvement of Libya 's neighbors, the Arab League, NAT... ...in getting any sense of stability in Libya , his frustration was palpable; yo... ...in the President's Daily Brief, when Libya came up and, you know, more bad news o... ...it and knew it. I heard that more with Libya than probably anything else on th... ...discussing this after talking about Libya , is just the omnipresence of thes... ...thinking with regard to Egypt and then Libya . How did this rhythm of events... ...the problem in Syria, how do Egypt and Libya factor in? It's a great question... ...many ways the president's experience in Libya , even more so than Iraq, colored hi... ...of extremists. But I really do think Libya was as much on the president's mind—an... ...Syria remains an issue, as does Libya ; but Syria, especially, through you... Show more... Rick Jordan ...haunting things was, that they knew Libya had chemical weapons. And they kne... Wendy Sherman ...the Sahel. Into the Levant, in terms of Libya , counterterrorism, Egypt. Remember, w... ... Likewise, getting our folks out of Libya . I visited Libya under extraordinar... ...our folks out of Libya. I visited Libya under extraordinary circumstances. Yo... ...We closed our embassy in Syria, in Libya . We took people out of South Sudan. ... Leon Panetta ...happened in Egypt, what happened in Libya , what happens in Syria eventually—an... ...we had—particularly with regards to Libya —made the decision along with NAT... ...that, in many ways, what we did in Libya was to, in effect, eventually get ri... ...in place. And so, I could see that with Libya . Yemen was another place where ou... ...of what was going on? Tunisia, Egypt, Libya , Syria, Bahrain, it spreads relativel... ...for—how do we approach stabilizing Libya and Yemen and Syria and Bahrain an... ...that were part of it, and look at Libya the same way, look at Syria in the sam... ...of course, our military operations in Libya as part of the NATO coalition—... ...of course, haven't really delved into Libya or Syria, but whether some of th... Show more... Load more Transcripts Related Topics go to the Climate, Environment, and Energy Climate, Environment, and Energy go to the Transparency and Media Transparency and Media go to the Human Rights Human Rights go to the Public Health Public Health go to the Black Politics Black Politics