It’s almost like he doesn’t know there was an arms embargo slapped on Libya in February that included no exemptions for non-regime forces.

(MSNBC) — President Barack Obama predicted Tuesday that continued military and diplomatic pressure will force Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to “ultimately step down.”

In an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams a day after he addressed the nation to explain his Libya policy, Obama refused to rule out providing direct U.S. military assistance to the rebels fighting Gadhafi’s government. But he said that was unlikely and that his comments shouldn’t be interpreted as signaling wider U.S. intervention in the region.

“Gadhafi’s been greatly weakened,” Obama said. “He does not have control over most of Libya at this point, and so for us to continue to apply this pressure, I think, will allow us the space and the time to forge the kind of political solution that’s necessary.”

Obama said that nine days into the U.S. action in Libya, “The degree to which we’ve degraded Gadhafi’s forces . . . has been significant.”

His comments came after U.S. ships and submarines were reported to have fired cruise missiles at Libyan missile facilities in and around Tripoli overnight.

“Our primary military goal is to protect civilian populations and to set up the no-fly zone,” he said, but “we’re not taking anything off the table at this point.”

“One of the questions that we want to answer is do we start getting to a stage where Gadhafi’s forces are sufficiently degraded where it may not be necessary to arm opposition groups,” he said.

He’s either clueless or threatening to break this UN Security Council embargo, I’d bet the house on clueless.

(FP) — In the rush to curtail Muammar al-Qaddafi’s military capacity to attack civilians in Libya, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on February 26 to impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Libya. But the measure also unwittingly impeded the effort of the Western-backed rebels to fight Qaddafi’s forces.

Paragraph 9 of Resolution 1970 required all U.N. members to “immediately take the necessary measures” to bar the sale, supply or transfer of weapons, mercenaries, or other supplies to Libya. The arms embargo, which was adopted before the rebels had emerged as a potential threat to the regime, included no exemptions for Qaddafi’s foes.