Obama stays open to more foreign intervention

Announcing the start of the US drawdown from Afghanistan, Obama acknowledged the heavy cost of America's overseas adventures as he sought to reassure a war-weary public the "tide of war is receding."

Under pressure from Congress over continued US involvement in the three-month-old air war in Libya, the president stood firm and warned against caving in to those questioning the nature of America's foreign engagements.

"Some would have America retreat from our responsibility as an anchor of global security, and embrace an isolation that ignores the very real threats that we face," he said. "Others would have America over-extend ourselves, confronting every evil that can be found abroad."

Obama said it was an option for the United States to stand idly back and watch innocents be murdered, as would have been the case in Libya, where strongman Moamer Qadhafi had vowed to slaughter his own people.

"We must chart a more centered course. Like generations before, we must embrace America's singular role in the course of human events. But we must be as pragmatic as we are passionate; as strategic as we are resolute," he said.

In an thinly-veiled appeal to the American people to give events in Libya time to play their course, Obama spoke of the founding US principles of freedom and prosperity for all.

"We stand not for empire, but for self-determination. That is why we have a stake in the democratic aspirations that are now washing across the Arab world," he said.

"We will support those revolutions with fidelity to our ideals, with the power of our example, and with an unwavering belief that all human beings deserve to live with freedom and dignity."

Obama did not shy away from laying out the brutal costs of war: nearly 4,500 American lives in Iraq, more than 1,500 in Afghanistan, countless more physically or psychologically maimed.

And with one eye on the faltering US economic recovery that is imperilling his 2012 re-election chances, he laid out a parallel message to his home audience that the drawdown provided America with a chance for renewal.

"Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times," he said.

"America, it is time to focus on nation building here at home. Now, we must invest in America's greatest resource -- our people. We must unleash innovation that creates new jobs and industry, while living within our means."

Veteran Senator John McCain recently expressed concern about growing isolationism in the Republican party, particularly among those vying for the 2012 presidential nomination such as tea party darling Michele Bachmann and Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney.

"There's always been an isolation strain in the Republican party, that Pat Buchanan (a former Republican presidential contender) wing of our party. But now it seems to have moved more center stage, so to speak," he said.

In his primetime televised address from the White House, Obama ordered home all the 33,000-strong surge troops by next summer as he announced the beginning of his effort to wind down the war in Afghanistan.

"Our mission will change from combat to support. By 2014, this process of transition will be complete, and the Afghan people will be responsible for their own security," he said.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011