yesterday when they highlighted as a policy matter that libya is in a bad situation since the libyan civil war, since gadhafi was toppled and then killed. he was killed four years ago this week. i can now imagine the toppling of assad in syria, whether or not he s propped up by the russians. but like in libya, i cannot imagine what happens after. and it worries me. is it a good idea to help topple assad when there isn t a government in waiting, when we don t have any idea what would happen next? well, let me just say a few words about libya because i think if we are going to draw some conclusions from that i d like to say a few words about it. one of the hallmarks of gadhafi s dictatorship is that he did hollow out all the institutions. but there was a very dedicated core of people who were committed to a democratic path forward. and it s often overlooked. libya held elections within a
assad when there isn t a government in waiting, when we don t have any idea what would happen next? well, let me just say a few words about libya because i think if we are going to draw some conclusions from that i d like to say a few words about it. one of the hallmarks of gadhafi s dictatorship is that he did hollow out all the institutions. but there was a very dedicated core of people who were committed to a democratic path forward. and it s often overlooked. libya held elections within a year, less than a year after the fall of gadhafi. they were free. they were fair. they elected moderates. they tried to form a government. they were making progress. and they had very little institutional support to do that. there were a number of efforts made, certainly by our government and others, to help them. it was almost as though they didn t know what to ask for and how to translate any help into changes on the ground.
this week is the fourth anniversary since the death of gadhafi. now the place is in chaos and no one is looking back at the u.s. policy, apart from the international coalition, but it was part of secretary clinton s policy. why isn t anybody asking questions about that? i think that was addressed to some degree today. some of the republican congress members asked about the rationale for the intervention, also the aftermath, after gadhafi fell, was there a plan. but i think what we heard forcefully and effectively from secretary clinton today as well as at the democratic debate last week, this really espouses her world view. she was an advocate for intervention in 2011 in the obama administration because she believed, along with many others including the current u.s. ambassador in the u.n., samantha power, susan rice and other, that if we did not intervene in libya with the support of allies in europe and the arab world, we
al qaeda-affiliated groups. certainly not what the then secretary of state had planned on seeing. what the president had planned on seeing. what the nato allies worked for when they got rid of gadhafi. stand by. we re going to take another quick break. a picture of the hearing room as we go to this break. take a look. you see the chairman of the committee gowdy, he s almost alone there, sitting at his chair, inside the longworth house office building. i assume he s preparing for this next round which is going to begin momentarily. quite exciting in the first round. we ll see what happens in round two when we come back. i don t want to live with the uncertainties of hep c. or wonder. .whether i should seek treatment. i am ready. because today there s harvoni. a revolutionary treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c. harvoni is proven to cure up to 99% of patients. .who ve had no prior treatment.
obama administration was prepared to acknowledge. we certainly heard it today very clearly from president obama at the u.n. that he s prepared to talk to iran and russia. but for a long time, the signals out of the administration, they did not want to deal with those two countries. very quickly on libya. lessons learned, the biggest mistake in libya, after the toppling of gadhafi, tremendous vacuum. that s led to this paralysis in syria. what s going to happen right aft afterwards in syria? it would be much worse than libya. thank you, sir. we have our first photo, by the way. president obama s meeting is under way with vladimir putin. i m sure the niceties are done. we ll be right back. debut episode of meet the press daily. us number of miles. or there s a fee to use them.