Report lambasts Cameron's Libya intervention
The Foreign Affairs Committee in the British House of Commons has accused former British Prime Minister David Cameron of making grave mistakes in planning the UK's intervention in the Libya war in 2011, saying Britain's military strategy was based on false assumptions. This is another case that highlights Cameron's shortsightedness, some commentators conclude. Others praise Britain's renewed commitment to investigating questionable interventions.
Shortsightedness Cameron's biggest drawback
Former British prime minister Cameron's unreflected policies were harmful not just in the case of Libya, the Guardian complains:
“It all adds yet more colour to the sketch history is likely to draw of Cameron. That he was hopelessly short-termist, too often acting for the moment, doing what he needed to get out of an immediate hole but failing to think things through. Sometimes, in the day-to-day tumble of domestic politics, that approach did little harm and served him well. It made him agile. But when blood and lives were at stake, it was a fatal flaw. Grave though the Libya case is, however, it will not be the one that defines him. That will always be Brexit, and Cameron’s decision to gamble with something as vital as Britain’s membership of the EU.”
British self-criticism exemplary
The British democracy's push to call politicians to account is exemplary, La Vanguardia comments:
“If the measure of a society's democratic maturity is its ability to exercise self-criticism on its present and recent past, then British society is without doubt setting an example. Last July it was the report by Sir John Chilcot that took ex-prime minister Tony Blair to task for the Iraq war in 2003. … Now another report, this time compiled by the parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee and dealing with the invasion of Libya in 2011, was made public yesterday and leaves David Cameron in a very tight spot.”