Efforts to pressure Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi out of power are succeeding, and there will not be stability in Libya until he steps down, US national security adviser Tom Donilon said.
In a transcript of an interview to air on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” on Sunday that was released on Saturday, Donilon said the United States and its NATO partners had averted humanitarian disaster with their Libya air strikes and shared a “long-term policy goal of seeing Gaddafi go.” “We have put together a broad, comprehensive set of pressure efforts to see him — to pressure him to step down. I think those efforts are succeeding,” he said.
“There’s almost an inevitability here, I think. There is an inevitability here building as to what the ultimate result will be.” Donilon, President Barack Obama’s top adviser on security issues, said that while Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had “made terrible mistakes” and “obviously abused his people through the violent actions against them,” the dynamic there was different from Libya. “They are different circumstances at this point,” he said.
“President Assad has indicated that he wants to move towards a national political dialogue and some change. Now, we have, I think, good reason to be skeptical about that given the choices that he’s made to date. But, this is the path that we’re on at this point — continued pressure, continued isolation to force him towards a set of decisions, towards a more representative, responsive government.”
He also said the United States was ready to re-engage with Iran on the topic of Tehran’s nuclear program — which Iran says is solely for peaceful purposes and Western powers believe is intended to also produce weapons — and would maintain sanctions on the country until that is resolved. “That path remains open to the Iranians to come to the table and deal with the nuclear issues,” he said.
On Afghanistan, Donilon backed Obama’s decision to withdraw US troops faster than Pentagon leaders had recommended and said he believed the conditions were right for Afghan peace talks to start to find traction. “Reconciliation will require the Taliban or anybody else who comes to the table to agree to renounce violence, renounce al Qaeda and agree to the constitution,” he said.
