US News

Obama celebrates end of Khadafy’s reign

WASHINGTON — President Obama yesterday celebrated the end of Moammar Khadafy’s brutal, 42-year reign, saying the “dark shadow of tyranny has been lifted” from Libya’s people — while claiming vindication of his own policies.

“For four decades, the Kadhafy regime ruled the Libyan people with an iron fist,” Obama said from the White House Rose Garden hours after news of the historic development broke.

“One of the world’s longest-serving dictators is no more,” he added. “This marks the end of a long and painful chapter for the people of Libya, who now have the opportunity to determine their own destiny.”

PHOTOS: MOAMMAR KHADAFY

VIDEO: KHADAFY’S CAPTURE

Obama described the development as an affirmation of his Libya policy, which included intervening while allying with British and French forces under NATO command, and stepping back to a support role after an initial withering round of US bombing.

“Without putting a single US service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives and our NATO mission will soon come to an end,” Obama said.

He also brought up other foreign-policy achievements, in what sounded like a new, three-point campaign pitch.

“We’ve taken out al Qaeda leaders and we’ve put them on the path to defeat. We’re winding down the war in Iraq and have begun a transition in Afghanistan. And now, working in Libya with friends and allies, we’ve demonstrated what collective action can achieve in the 21st century,” he said.

In a line aimed at the region’s other despots, the president said, “Today’s events prove once more that the rule of an iron fist inevitably comes to an end.”

Asked if that sends a message to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, who has mounted a brutal crackdown on protesters, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney simply restated existing policy that Assad “has lost his legitimacy to rule.”

US relations with Khadafy were sometimes more cordial in the past decade. Obama was photographed shaking his hand at a G-8 summit in 2009, and George W. Bush’s administration lifted restrictions when Khadafy agreed to give up Libya’s nuclear program.

Vice President Joe Biden, at a speech in New Hampshire yesterday, remarked on the relative low cost of the US role in operations to get rid of someone who had taunted and confounded the United States for decades.

“In this case, America spent $2 billion total and didn’t lose a single life. This is more of the prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward than it has been in the past,” he said. The White House put the tab so far at $1 billion to $2 billion.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who had been calling for more aggressive military action in Libya, told Fox News Channel, “This is a victory for the president, the Obama administration, but most importantly the Libyan people’s chance for freedom.”

“This really is a remarkable sequence of events — the fact that Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Moammar Khadafy are all now gone from this earth,” said Michael Singh, a former Bush security aide now at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.

“Clearly the president is going to try to turn that into a narrative that says: Look, I’m strong on national security. Does it amount to a successful foreign policy? Frankly I don’t think it does,” he added.

Obama is unlikely to get much political mileage out of the successful regime change in this sluggish economy. His ratings jumped only for a short time after the successful operation to get bin Laden.

As Libyans celebrated, Obama urged a smooth transition and free elections.

But Carney said it was “premature” to talk about what sort of support the United States might provide to Libya’s National Transitional Council. The tribal society lacks political parties and basic civil institutions.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton got the news of Khadafy’s death while traveling in Afghanistan, and her reaction was caught on camera when aide Huma Abedin handed her a BlackBerry during a CNN interview.

“Wow!” she exclaimed.

She later quipped to a reporter “We came, we saw, he died.”

Jubilant Libyans living in the New York area whooped it up yesterday.

“I feel like I was born today. I was really happy because Libya captured him, not NATO. I didn’t want him to be killed by anyone other than Libyans,” said Hossam Harisha, 29, a dental student living in Astoria, Queens.

“Finally, we killed Khadafy. This is history,” said Ashraf Elzer, 36, an NYU grad student.