Libya is facing a lot of problems, even after the successful defeat of Muammar al-Gaddafi’s loyalist forces and the murder of the once dictator himself. But officials in Libya’s National Transitional Council, the interim body that has been criticized over the past few months for its lack of transparency, are gearing up all of their resources to ensure that Libya’s future is a little bit easier going into the New Year.
Improving Libya’s economic and political future cannot be achieved until the council is serious about mending fences with former Gaddafi fighter and bringing the nation’s dozens of independent militias firmly under the central government’s authority.
Like any postwar transition process, reconciliation across the board is key — an effort that not only demonstrates the government’s goodwill to those who fought on the wrong side but a move that helps ensure that everyone is given a say in the new governing arrangement. With eight months of conflict pitting Libyan against Libyan, reconciliation and reintegration, as well as rebel disarmament and the establishment of and strong transparent national institutions, is an urgent priority for the NTC.
Accomplishing this objective has been a difficult and painfully slow endeavor since the civil war was officially termed over after Gaddafi’s capture and death last October. At least two hundred civilians turned fighters continue to patrol Libya’s two largest cities, Tripoli and Benghazi, with the most powerful militia in the capital resisting the city council’s disarmament efforts until the transitional government proves that it can take over the security function.
Residents in Tripoli have been complaining about the presence of militias from out of town, with fighters from Misrata and Zintan, both cities in the west, acting as if the capital were their personal fiefdom. The same rebels who were cheered on by Libyans from both the east and the west are increasingly resembling bands of renegades who are menacingly patrolling neighborhoods with their machine guns and anti-aircraft weaponry.
For their part, Libya’s roving militias continue to view themselves as their nation’s guardians — the only people capable of providing the type of stability that is needed to defend against a Gaddafi loyalist comeback.
Libya’s rebels are also getting impatient, demanding that the NTC expand its membership so more revolutionaries can join.
The interim body’s chairman, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, is making an effort to do just that. The defense and interior ministries, both critical to defending and operating Libya’s borders, oilfields and ports, are sending out applications to former rebels through municipal councils, encouraging them to lay aside their weapons in return for full employment. Security jobs are just the kind of work that the thousands of militiamen have been asking for. Soldiers and policemen require many of the same skills that Libya’s diverse militias have been honing since the revolution began last February, including arms training, basic command and control, issuing orders, taking them, building camaraderie and taking care of wounded.
Yet upon entry in the security forces, militiamen will also be forced to learn skills that they have not performed previously, like abandoning their freelancing ways and pledging allegiance to a state that is only in its infant stages. Rounding up people on mere suspicion will have to be replaced with issuing arrest warrants upon probable cause. Prisoners will need access to an attorney instead of rotting in a jail cell, indefinitely. Those who are found not guilty of their crimes or those who cannot be linked to a violation through credible evidence are to be released back into the population. A system of laws then must be drilled into the heads of Libya’s politicians, generals, police officers, bureaucrats and armed citizens.
No one said rebuilding Libya will be an easy task. Thanks to Gaddafi’s obsession with himself and his ideology, any of the national institutions that were functioning have been worn down or like the Libyan army, purposely destroyed for fear of a faction emerging powerful enough to rival his own.
The NTC’s job opening is a big step forward but one that cannot be sustained without good natured international assistance, from military liaison teams and military education, to election observers and creation of employment in Libya’s petroleum industry and outside of it.
The present situation in Libya, where militias clash among each other over prisoners and territory, cannot be sustained. Converting the militias into a national army and police force will not end all of the country’s problems but could set a good precedent.
Take a quick glance at Tripoli from the TV, and you will see scenes of celebration and jubilation that the Libyan people haven’t been able to enjoy for 42 years. Columns of armed rebels have streamed into the center of the Libyan capital to the sound of cheering civilians kissing the ground and large billboards of Muammar al-Gaddafi being torn down. The trademark green flag of the colonel’s Libyan Revolution — a symbol of the regime’s oppression for decades — are ripped and replaced with the pre-Gaddafi red, black and green banner. The last-ditch effort by Gaddafi soldiers to stall the rebel offensive, with the exception of a few pockets of resistance near Gaddafi’s fortress like compound, proved to be a misnomer, with hundreds laying down their arms and blending into the general population. Even if no one knows where he is, Gaddafi is a beaten man, holding on to the delusion that Libyan tribes will come to his rescue and millions of supporters will desert their families to beat back the rebels in the streets of Tripoli.
The international reaction to Gaddafi’s imminent downfall was optimistic and predictable. President Barack Obama issued a statement reiterating his call that the Libyan leader should recognize that his people have no love for him and should stop resisting immediately. NATO, which has paved the way for the rebel advance, has pledged to continue its airstrikes until Gaddafi no longer poses a threat to civilians.
After six months of civil war, France, Great Britain and the United States are finally patting themselves on the back and congratulating one another on a job well done. Indeed, if it weren’t for NATO, there was a very high probability that Gaddafi would have survived the armed revolt against his opponents. Only six months ago, the rebels were days away from being squashed by Libyan security forces in the city of Benghazi.
Sensing that a massacre was imminent, NATO decided to intervene with airpower, helping push Libyan forces to the periphery. Close to 8,000 strike sorties later — and with the rebel’s determination on the ground complementing NATO’s efforts — Gaddafi’s military infrastructure is nonexistent.
Yet at the same time Libyans are dancing in the streets and shooting celebratory gunfire into the air, the work of rebuilding the country and its institutions is only just beginning. As history has demonstrated countless times over the past four decades (from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to Mobutu Sese Seko’s Congo), driving a dictator into hiding is a whole lot easier than ensuring that peace and inclusiveness will define the transition process. The United States found out the long way how difficult establishing a postwar order was both Iraq and Afghanistan, where the new governments have failed to be impartial and fair to all sectors of society.
Libya, with its tribal, regional and ethnic dimensions, is no different. The North African country may have its own political history but the comparisons to post-Saddam Iraq could be a self-fulfilling prophecy if certain steps are not taken immediately to edge the country in the right direction.
Gaddafi was a lot of things but he was certainly not a developer. He leaves in his wake a debilitating set of national institutions that were designed specifically to promote his bazaar brand of Arab socialism.
With rebels streaming into the capital, the official Libyan army and police force has essentially disbanded themselves, leaving open a security vacuum that rebel militias have tried to fill. Oil production, which has long been Libya’s main industry, is pumping and selling oil at a trickle of what it once was before the civil war began. The postwar period in Libya, therefore, will be an especially combustible period — but one that Libyans and the world must turn into a success.
Courtesy of foreign journalists on the ground, Libya watchers in the private sector, academics specializing in postwar reconstruction and my own ideas, here are a few steps (some small, others large) that could be taken in the first few months to smooth the process toward a fair and representative interim authority.
The last thing the Libyan rebels and the National Transitional Council in Benghazi need are ministries that are run by incompetent people with ulterior motives. Not all of the men and women who worked for the Libyan dictator were supportive of his ideology. Like those who worked under Saddam Hussein, many of the middle managers and midlevel technocrats joined Gaddafi’s administration for a steady paycheck, benefits and a sense of security for their families. Most of them also possess an acute knowledge of the social fissures in their own society.
Rather than shutting these public servants out and wasting their experience, the NTC must work with them to begin the reconstruction.
Libya is a huge country, with the entire territory larger than the state of Texas. Libyans are also armed to the teeth and with rebels now in the capital, the desire to raid government ammunition dumps (either to sell or to maintain the battlefield advantage) borders on the certainty.
If the NTC were smart, it would issue an executive order demanding that all rebel factions under its control resort to guarding the dumps rather than stealing what is inside.
Unfortunately, some of the rebels may not listen. The looting of Gaddafi’s Tripoli compound is a case in point. But better to issue an order and attempt to deal with the problem now than face a situation in the future where thousands of untrained men are strapped with AK-47s and ground to air missiles.
The United States and the United Nations hold approximately $32 billion in frozen Libyan government assets. That money can go a long way to jump starting a number of projects in areas that were destroyed by the fighting.
The NTC is the legitimate government in Libya today and with Gaddafi loyalists melting away, their authority will only increase as the days go by. Releasing the frozen funds, which after all belong to the Libyan people, is a great first step that the world can take toward building confidence in the new Libya and promoting a deep relationship with Libya’s new rulers.
The news coming out of the United Nations Security Council, which authorized the release of $1.5 billion on Thursday for humanitarian and reconstruction needs, is a positive example that should be used as a precedent. The funds, however, should not be released all at once, as postwar reconstruction expoert Daniel Serwer has suggested. Iraq and Afghanistan have both taught us that billions in the open market are more likely to fuel corruption than fund local, regional or national growth.
While eastern and western Libyans both participated in ousting Gaddafi from power, the two areas of the country hold specific grievances and remain suspicious of one another. A large part of this animosity is due to Gaddafi’s abandonment of eastern Libya, which is precisely why Benghazi was the first major city to push for an alternative form of government.
Easterners view western Libyans as the main beneficiaries of Gaddafi’s oil-producing economy. The colonel’s hometown of Sirte has seen development, while Libya’s eastern frontier is wracked with leaking sewage systems and blackouts.
For their part, western rebels paint a poor picture of a Benghazi based leadership that is laissez-faire on too many issues, the most important being the NTC’s cumbersome support for western rebels during the Nafusa Mountain offensive.
Giving all of Libya’s regions and tribes an equal say in the transition process is a necessity if the NTC wishes to hold on to power before elections are scheduled. Fortunately, NTC chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil has called for a conference emphasizing just that.
Once Gaddafi and his men are gone for good — and the neighborhoods of the capital city are relatively secure — the NTC leadership should move their permanent headquarters from Benghazi to Tripoli. The move would be a symbolic gesture to western Libyans and Gaddafi loyalists who might otherwise fear that Libya’s interim government plans on marginalizing them.
Libya’s oil industry is the primary income generator for the government. Civil servants, policemen, militiamen, schoolteachers, diplomats and construction workers all need to get paid — and paid consistently. Opening up Libya’s oil to outside markets and using profits from those contracts and sales for salaries could be the fastest way to make everyone happy in the short term.
For the past 42 years, a functioning constitution never came into play. The entire government structure was predicated on Gaddafi’s personal beliefs, down to the local level. With the man now gone, Libyans have an opportunity to draft a national constitution of their own liking.
Libyans above all should be the sole drafters of the Constitution after reasonably free and fair elections have taken place. Western nations should keep their involvement in the Constitution drafting process to a minimum, eliminating the concern that is prevalent in Libya over a possible return to colonialism.
Tripoli may be in rebel hands but Gaddafi loyalists will continue to stage fierce resistance elsewhere in the country. Qaddafi’s hometown of Sirte and villages in the southern desert are still held by loyalist forces and may be held for many more months. Declaring victory, even as Gaddafi remains at large and towns in the Sahel are still contested, could very well hurt the NTC’s credibility with its supporters if the security situation deteriorates. Avoiding a “Mission Accomplished” moment while recognizing that Libyan territory is still not entirely free from Gaddafi’s influence would be a demonstration of realism in an otherwise hyped atmosphere.
Everything in this list is pivotal to lifting Libya off the ground after six months of armed conflict. More work will need to be done as the NTC meets its initial deadlines, particularly on the important task of drafting a constitution that every tribe, region and ethnicity can live with. But with a post-Gaddafi Libya now progressing, preventing political disintegration, lawlessness, looting, factional infighting, retribution against former Gaddafi supporters, economic distress and regional rivalry must be on the top of any “to do” list.
None of this will be quick or easy but it is essential if Libya is to divert from the path of other postwar countries.
In a less than a week’s time, disappointment turned into optimism for Libya’s opposition. After months of incremental progress on the ground and hundreds of NATO airstrikes, the North African country’s band of rebels have had an impressive string of victories against Muammar Gaddafi’s struggling army, with cities just a few dozen miles away from the capital now under the transitional council’s umbrella. Gaddafi’s soldiers are battered, rebel commanders say, and increasingly tired of putting their own lives on the line for a regime that is destined to fall this summer.
The rebel capture of Az Zawiyah, strategically located between Gaddafi’s Tripoli and the Tunisian border crossing, has had the intended effect of squeezing the Libyan government’s access to vital resources. Gas to fuel trucks, food to feed the troops and weapons to fight the rebels are all running low. While the Libyan-Tunisian border checkpoint is technically still in the hands of Gaddafi’s men, supplies are unable to reach beyond a third of the way to the capital. Large swaths of the Libyan desert, which until recently were contested, are now mainly held by rebel forces. Absent the occasional loyalist sniper or a few GRAD rockets fired at rebel positions, the opposition has a strong foothold in the western area of the country, starting from the Nafusa Mountains to a mere thirty miles from Tripoli.
By cutting of highways and other roads leading into the north, Libya’s opposition managed to encircle the capital from all directions, depriving the city of the materials that are needed to sustain the battle — all the while limiting Gaddafi’s options.
The news is encouraging for a NATO coalition that has backed the anti-Gaddafi movement to the fullest extent possible short of direct military intervention.
While it is tempting to predict the strongman’s imminent demise, Libya is still prone to a violent showdown. Gaddafi has lost all semblance of credibility in the south, east and west of his country but retains some popular support in Tripoli. Most of his active duty soldiers who were previously defeated along the country’s western frontier have been called to redeploy into the city center, a move that might indicate the regime’s willingness to fight to the last man.
A popular uprising against Gaddafi’s forces in Tripoli before the rebels enter is a possibility, though a distant one at that. The Transitional National Council know that many Tripoli residents are too scared to revolt, having been locked by Gaddafi’s men in a perpetual state of fear throughout the uprising. Tripoli is the one city in Libya that is still fortified by government compounds and patrolled street to street by Gaddafi loyalists. Most of the anti-government demonstrations that surface in the city, however small, are snuffed out.
The TNC also understands that a brazen advance into the capital could be the most violent battle of the entire war. This makes the siege of Tripoli all the more central to the rebels’ battlefield strategy. By isolating the coastal enclave and choking off fuel shipments into neighborhoods, electricity shortages and rising food prices will hopefully annoy some of the more pragmatic Libyans in the capital to join the opposition’s side. However, these developments will be moot unless the rebels actually consolidate their gains, which has been exceedingly difficult as Gaddafi’s soldiers rely on mortar and rocket counterattacks to stall their advances.
The regime is clearly at its weakest since the start of the uprising in February but an embattled Gaddafi could actually transform the Libyan conflict into a more catastrophic one in the short term. A ruler is far less likely to resort to Scud missile attacks if he thinks his authority is relatively secure. But with Gaddafi’s men folding over the last three days to rebel and NATO pressure, the likelihood of the dictator using long range weapons increases. Given Gaddafi’s insistence on fighting rather than surrendering, more Scuds flying around northern Libya may be his final act of desperation.
Everyone hopes that Gaddafi would rather save his skin rather than ruin the country he has governed for the past 42 years. Unfortunately, his past indicates that may be more prone to lashing out than compromising. With the rebels near their doorsteps, the Gaddafi family’s determination is at its peak.
Whether referred to as indirect negotiations, unofficial peace overtures or feelers from the international community, Britain, France, the United States and their NATO partners are sending out signals to Muammar al-Gaddafi that diplomacy is increasingly an option for ending the conflict in his country.
For Gaddafi and what remains of his military force, talk of diplomacy from a NATO coalition that just weeks before predicted that his regime was ever closer to collapse is an encouraging development. Gaddafi’s loyalists may be equipped with old military equipment and cash may be running out, but they are obviously doing something right if the world’s strongest military alliance is having trouble turning the tide of the war to its advantage.
Indeed, what Gaddafi’s military has lacked in weaponry it has made up for in tactics — evolving from a conventional military force to an asymmetrical guerrilla movement fighting the rebels to a standstill. And with official soldiers difficult to pick out from regular civilians, the strike sorties that NATO has depended on to enforce its no-fly zone and help the Libyan opposition on the ground are jeopardized to a certain degree. The rebels’ shortage of weapons and, in some distinct cases, fundamental disagreements among the Transitional National Council’s (TNC) numerous tribes, has dampened their ability to progress on the battlefield.
It is this frustration on the frontlines, coupled with the rising impatience in Western capitals that Gaddafi is still hanging on, why the leading partners of NATO’s coalition are concentrating on a more civilized approach. With rebel positions stalled as the desert heat of summer continues to set in, NATO is undeniably hoping that a nice bribe will convince Gaddafi to step down from power and make way for a democratic transition. France, the most outspoken member of the anti-Gaddafi alliance to date, is voicing tepid support to such an alternative. The United States, a longtime Gaddafi adversary, is not necessarily opposed to the strongman remaining in Libya as long as he completely relinquishes power and ensures that he will not work behind the scenes to impede the transition.
Making peace with a tyrant who has the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians staining his hands is hard for any diplomat to stomach. Backpedaling on the military operation is also a tough thing for any military organization to do, since easing the bombing is basically an admission that the alliance has not been able to achieve its objectives through force alone. But conditions inside Libya today are not getting any better. The TNC, despite receiving international support and defections from Gaddafi ministers, is still not in control of the majority of the Libyan people. The prospects for negotiation get dimmer every time the rebel advance toward Tripoli is stalled. Finding an agreement that Gaddafi’s family will accept is therefore a course of action that should be considered.
In order to speed up the process and make a peace offer as credible as it can get, NATO would find it helpful to commission two countries that are seen as neutral players in the conflict.
Turkey and South Africa, one representing the Muslim world and the other representing the African Union, might be two acceptable choices for taking the lead in those talks. Gaddafi has enjoyed a good relationship with South Africa over the years, a country whose former president Nelson Mandela once referred to Gaddafi as a “brother leader.” Turkey, a rising star in the Muslim world and an actor that has championed the same Arab causes that Gaddafi has shown an interest in (the rights of Palestinians) could possibly sweeten the negotiating atmosphere. Russia, which holds considerable economic interests in Libya, could also be a trustworthy partner in the eyes of the Gaddafi regime — that is, if the Russian government is willing to concede further military action in Libya if the talks prove to be unsuccessful.
With the diplomatic chops of Turkey and South Africa and with the weight of Western nations to back them up, sweet talking Gaddafi and assuring the safety of himself and his family could be the quickest, and least bloody, mechanism to send him packing. Human rights organizations may not agree with the tactic but it will save the lives of thousands who would perish from more violence.
In May 2011, the Royal Navy’s First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, told a parliamentary defense committee that the retention of Britain’s aircraft carrier capacity would be his top priority if the Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR) were rewritten. Had this been the case, the carrier would in all likelihood be participating in operations against the regime of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi right now.
Today in an interview with The Telegraph, Sir Mark argues that had HMS Ark Royal and her Harrier aircraft been available, they would have made the mission in Libya more effective, faster and cheaper and allowed Britain a more reactive force. But just how valid is his argument?
While the Harrier is a capable aircraft, it is unable to use the Royal Air Force’s latest air to surface munitions, the Storm Shadow and Brimstone, both of which are being used by the Tornado and in the case of Brimstone also by the Eurofighter Typhoon. The Harrier also lacks a standoff anti-radiation missile and even air to air radar. It would therefore have been forced to rely on American or French strikes against Libyan air defenses to permit any operations. The French and other NATO allies would have had to enforce the no-fly zone while Harrier craft carried out ground strikes.
The Harrier would have allowed a faster reaction time — twenty minutes as opposed to an hour and a half because the current aircraft operate from bases in Italy. The Harrier is slightly more expensive per hour to operate than the Tornado however and the deployment of an aircraft carrier with an escort and support vessels could cost a significant sum in fuel, supplies and wages at a time when the Treasury and Ministry of Defense are desperate to cut costs.
The Tornado and Eurofighter require the deployment of support personnel from Britain, the support of tanker aircraft en route to Libya, the leasing of Italy’s Gioia del Colle air base and the movement of munitions from Britain to Italy so operational costs are also high, especially when the use of Tornado aircraft based in Britain flying directly to strike targets in Libya is included.
Having Harrier available would have made little or no difference to the campaign itself. It would have been unable to participate in the opening strikes due to the threats posed by Libyan air defenses, unable to enforce a no-fly zone owing to its lack of anti-aircraft and air defense capability and its contribution to supporting Libyan rebels with ground strikes would rely on hitting tanks inside Misrata with Paveway bombs; a recipe for collateral damage!
Sir Mark is quite right that Britain cannot maintain its operational tempo in Libya. However this is as much due to the fact that after almost three months of sporadic bombing there are few targets that can be “justifiably” bombed to pressure Gaddafi as it is due to government cost cutting. No amount of aircraft carriers or strike aircraft would have altered this. As Sir Mark goes on to say, there is no going back and we have to look forward, presumably to next month when he tells us again of his desire for an aircraft carrier capability.
Perhaps if Sir Mark had been as determined to retain the Royal Navy’s carrier capability before the SDSR had taken effect, he might still have had it? As it is, Sir Mark joins a long list of British military chiefs who have failed to stand up to the government to the detriment of the service personnel they command.
In what has become a prolonged, seesaw slug between Muammar al-Gaddafi’s Libyan army units and the rebels (now formally known as the Transitional National Council), the United States have been observing the conflict lately from the outside looking in. The first week was all about American planes and warships directing Tomahawk cruise missiles onto precise Libyan government facilities, including a strike that was aimed directly at Gaddafi’s military compound in Tripoli. But with violence now escalating and the conflict quickly looking more and more like a civil war, the Obama Administration has wised up and taken a back seat.
NATO, specifically the Belgians, British, Canadians and the French, have been under control of the allied assault since Washington diverted authority last month. For better or for worse, the Europeans are now the predominate executors of the no-fly-zone mandate, hitting Gaddafi loyalists massing near opposition controlled cities from thousands of miles in the air. Yet even with the operation still up and running, some of the bravado that was exhibited by the coalition during the opening phase of the campaign has been lost by a combination of frustration and confusion.
Foremost among that frustration are the British and the French, who have both been disappointed that other partners in the NATO coalition have not lived up to their end of the burden. The United Nations Security Council, the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference may have all signed on to the humanitarian intervention but only a few are actually contributing fighters in the skies. Fewer still are patrolling Libya’s airspace in order to protect civilians who have been liberated from Gaddafi’s army. The only Arab states that are actively participating are Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Of those three, only Qatar is flying missions.
Therefore, perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the United States reentered the fight and assumed a more proactive role. The Europeans and NATO both asked for American assistance during bombing runs: only the United States have the equipment and fighter jets that can indefinitely hit targets without inflicting substantial civilian casualties. The president heard their calls and deployed armed Predator drones over Libya in order to tilt the military balance in favor of the rebels.
For an administration that was hesitant to intervene in the first place, this decision is right in line with America’s minimalist objectives in Libya — avoid the deployment of ground troops by protecting civilians from the air. At the same time, dispatching drones to Libya demonstrates to the Europeans that the United States have not gotten soft as the conflict has gotten messier. (Some respected journalists have argued that drones may just make the war worse.)
Will drone strikes help the coalition effort in any substantial way? If the objective is to parse out Gaddafi fighters from the general civilian population, the answer is yes. As illustrated in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, drone technology is quite reliable and their propensity for singling out people is virtually assured. Gaddafi loyalists have adapted to NATO airstrikes by hiding in residential areas and blending in with civilians, which inevitably makes it more difficult to neutralize them without killing innocents at the same time. Drones, which can hover above a target for up to twelve straight hours, mitigate the chances of collateral damage quite dramatically.
The assassination of Muammar Gaddafi himself may also be a motive for sending drone aircraft into the intervention. Hundreds of Al Qaeda commanders have been killed by drones over the last seven years in the Pakistani tribal regions and a top terrorist leader in Yemen was wiped out in the same fashion a year after the 9/11 attacks. Pilotless aircraft are clearly the weapon of choice in American counterterrorism assignments around the world.
Now, we can file “protecting Libyan civilians” as a new bullet point in the drone resume.
Earlier this month, the Russian government surprised many observers by going along with UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which authorized international enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya. Russia was initially expected to veto the resolution. Instead, Russia chose to abstain in order to ensure the protection of civilians, while its ambassador to the United Nations made statements expressing concern about how the resolution would be implemented.
In recent years, Russia has had close trade relations with the Libyan government. In particular it has signed billions of dollars worth of arms contracts with the regime of Muammar Gaddhafi. This is the context that partially explains the removal of Vladimir Chamov, Russia’s ambassador to Libya, after he sent a telegram to Moscow arguing that allowing the UN resolution to pass would represent a betrayal of Russia’s state interests. Chamov has since returned to Moscow where he has publicly spoken out against the implementation of the no-fly zone.
In the last week, Russia’s attitude toward the no-fly zone has unexpectedly become a factor in Russian domestic politics. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s statement on March 21 criticized the UN resolution for getting involved in an internal conflict. In the most controversial part of his remarks, Putin argued that the resolution allowed international forces to take virtually any measures against a sovereign state, and in this he said it resembled medieval calls to crusades, “when someone called on others to go to a certain place and liberate it.”
The response from President Dmitri Medvedev was almost immediate. He argued that Russia’s abstention on the resolution vote was the proper position. Furthermore, he dressed down Putin (though not by name) by saying:
Under no circumstances is it acceptable to use expressions that essentially lead to a clash of civilizations, such as ‘crusades’ and so on. It is unacceptable. Otherwise, everything may end up much worse than what is going on now. Everyone should remember that.
And he removed Chamov from his position, essentially for public insubordination. Putin came out the next day with a statement indicating that the president is responsible for foreign policy in Russia and that he backed his president’s policies. A spokesman indicated that Putin’s previous statement was simply an indication of his own personal views rather than an official policy statement.
It may be that this conflict was yet another example of the good cop-bad cop show that the Russian leadership tandem have been putting on for the last three years. Or it may be that this is the first serious indication that Medvedev and Putin are engaged in a serious behind the scenes tussle for the right to run for president in 2012. I am still slightly on the side of the former, though a second public disagreement of this level of seriousness would be enough to convince me that this is a genuine conflict.
Rather than focus on the domestic conflict, I want to examine why Russian politicians see this conflict the way they do. I would argue that Russian leaders’ inconsistent position on Libya is essentially a case of wanting to have their cake and eat it too.
I believe that Russian leaders decided not to veto Resolution 1973 for two reasons. First, they did not want to alienate Western leaders who were pushing for the intervention. While the rapprochement with the United States is important to them and certainly played a role here, we should also remember the importance of Russian political and economic ties with European states and especially France and Italy, both of whom were strongly in favor of a no-fly zone because of the potential for a humanitarian and refugee disaster in the event of an attack by Gaddhafi’s forces on Benghazi. Second, Russian leaders did not want to be blamed for blocking the intervention if the result was a large-scale massacre of civilians.
On the other hand, Russian leaders also did not want to create a new norm of international intervention in internal conflicts, particularly when these conflicts were the result of a popular uprising against an authoritarian ruler. They genuinely dislike what they see as a Western predilection for imposing their values and forms of government on other parts of the world. They remember the color revolutions in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia, in which friendly regimes were replaced by ones that were to a greater or lesser extent anti-Russian.
Furthermore, they believe that these popular protest movements were organized and funded by Western governments, particularly the United States. This creates a certain amount of suspicion of similar protests leading to the removal of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa, even when the deposed rulers do not have particularly close ties to Russia.
So Russian leaders are understandably nervous about the coalition’s rather expansive interpretation of Resolution 1973. They were willing to allow for the establishment of a no-fly zone in order to avert a likely massacre of civilians and to help their European partners avoid a flood of refugees on their soil. They are much less willing to see NATO forces provide military assistance to a popular uprising against an authoritarian ruler that it has traditionally supported.
I suspect that Russian leaders will increasingly begin to speak out against the military campaign if this conflict drags on. They will be especially concerned if it becomes increasingly clear that NATO airstrikes are targeting Gaddhafi’s ground forces rather than limiting themselves to preventing Libyan air forces from targeting civilian areas.
On March 19, 2011, the British military began attacking Libyan government targets under the auspices of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973. As a leading advocate of the no-fly zone, Britain’s anti-Gaddafi stance became apparent quite early on when leading members of the cabinet publicly condemned the actions of the Libyan regime.
Britain is contributing various airborne assets from the 1970s vintage Tornado and handing a debut to the “state of the art” Typhoon as well as surveillance, transport and tanker aircraft. (more…)
There is hardly an hour that goes by without a new development in the Libyan standoff. Newspapers, television shows and world governments have been boxed into an extremely tough position. The Obama Administration has been scrambling to forge a comprehensive policy to an otherwise evolving situation. Some people still aren’t exactly sure how the Libyan government will respond in the coming days. Every contingent is still open and military force by the international community has now become the official policy of the United Nations, the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The Libya story is constantly changing, so it’s obviously difficult to track down exactly where we are at this moment, let alone what action Muammar al-Gaddafi will take to either prolong or end the stalemate in his country. Nevertheless, something significant has indeed happened. With a vote of ten to zero, the United Nations Security Council authorized the use of military force against Gaddafi’s regime in order to protect Libyan civilians. French warplanes and American cruise missiles fired the first shots, taking out some of Libya’s air defense systems along the Mediterranean coast this weekend.
With the United States voting in favor of the resolution, Washington once again committed itself to an intervention in the Muslim world — all at a time when American military resources are stretched thin and billions of dollars continue to be spent in Afghanistan and Iraq. So with the United States, Europe and the Arab states now intervening, here are some questions that should be considered as the military campaign grinds on.
Who will lead the operation? The Security Council resolution was passed by a number of countries, including Bosnia, France, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa and the United Kingdom. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar have pledged to contribute fighter planes and/or other equipment to the effort. But who will actually fly the planes and bomb Gaddafi’s defenses?
A American-led operation would not sit well with Arabs, most of whom are still scarred by Washington’s stance vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and Iraq. Europe may be well suited to enforce the no-fly zone: France, Britain and Italy have far more to lose in Libya than the United States ever will.
What happens if Gaddafi capitulates? If he blinks and backs down, will the United Nations decide to scrap the no-fly zone? Ironically, this question seems to have already been answered, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton not taking Gaddafi’s ceasefire announcement seriously. Yet a ceasefire would indicate that the core component of the UN resolution — the protection of civilians — has been met (at least temporarily). This appears to suggest that the United States and its allies may go a step further, perhaps by arming the opposition or bombing Gaddafi’s compounds.
Who are we dealing with? The Libyan opposition is a loose collection of untrained fighters from traditional anti-Gaddafi strongholds. There is no coherent or organized leadership passing down orders, nor is there a clear picture about what the opposition wants — besides the removal of their dictator. With the UN resolution now in affect, the international community has publicly endorsed the rebel side. Unfortunately, we have endorsed a bunch of people who may hold different interests for Libya if and when Gaddafi leaves or falls from power.
Will boots on the ground be necessary? We have to ask ourselves what the next step will be if the no-fly zone and bombing raids fail to persuade Gaddafi to five up fighting. As his history suggests, there is always the possibility that he and his loyalists will dig in and consolidate their authority through unconventional means.
One scenario is the movement of heavy weaponry and anti-aircraft guns into populated civilian areas, ensuring that any foreign strike will kill innocents in the process. It’s a terrible violation of the Geneva Convention, yet Gaddafi has demonstrated that he will pull out all the stops in order to survive. What happens then? Will the United States, Europe and the Arab world decide to increase the scope of their operation?
Is Obama’s team on the same page? There is cause for concern that the administration may not be unified on the president’s decision to use force. The National Security Council was divided during the entire deliberation process with Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power and Ambassador Susan Rice arguing for the intervention and defense secretary Robert Gates, Vice President Joe Biden and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon opposing involvement. Gates and Biden, two of the most powerful people in the administration, found themselves on the losing side but must now set aside their disagreements and work to support the president’s policy.
Muammar al-Gaddafi’s paramilitary forces are making an impressive comeback against the Libyan rebels who, until recently, were stringing victories around the country and capturing key cities along the Mediterranean coast. Those early successes were impressive given the rebels’ lack of a clear command and control system and the fact that many of their fighters were volunteers untrained to handle weapons.
Unfortunately, Gaddafi and his regime are playing catch up, recapturing several key oil facilities while preserving their authority in the capital city of Tripoli. Close to a month into the fight, the poorly equipped insurgents are losing the bulk of their momentum. Reports from the frontlines indicate that hundreds of their men are dying from simple wounds, while The New York Times (whose reporters have been excellent throughout the crisis) claims that food, water and basic medical supplies are running thin. All the while, Gaddafi’s personal army is continuing to bombard weapons depots and opposition controlled areas.
It should be remembered that Gaddafi was at one point the West’s most formidable enemy. In addition to providing arms to corrupt dictators on his own continent, the Libyan dictator supported terrorist operations in places as diverse as Northern Ireland and Columbia. The IRA and FARC are only two terrorist organizations that have received monetary and logistical resources from Gaddafi’s government. (more…)
“The tide of Libya’s revolt-turned-civil-war has turned against the rebels,” writes Una Moore at UN Dispatch. Gaddafi loyalists backed up by tanks, aircraft and rocket artillery captured the central Libyan oil port of Ra’s Lanuf on Friday then moved a further 77 miles east, taking the oil terminal of Brega.
In western Libya, loyalists devastated the city of Zawiyah. If the loyalists can maintain their momentum, they will be poised to attack the strategic city of Ajdabiya and then be on to Benghazi. That’s a big if, however, on a battlefield with intense logistics pressures and a historical record of rapid advances and retreats.
Still, Gaddafi has tanks and airpower. And the rebels? Not so much. (more…)
Libya, the home of the most cruel, egocentric and bizarre dictatorship of modern history, is now at a crossroads.
As Western television news stations begin to wean off of the Egyptian euphoria of the past month, journalists from Al Jazeera are publishing accounts of brazen violence from Muammar al-Gaddafi’s government and risking their own lives to broadcast images of security forces massacring ordinary demonstrators in the streets.
The scenes from Libya are truly horrifying. Witnesses, activists, demonstrators and international human rights monitors are all coming back to the press with the same observations: Gaddafi’s loyalists are using every tool at their disposal to quell the unrest and preserve their regime. (more…)
