Many Americans are convinced that now that the UN has approved a no-fly zone, the problem with Libya is resolved. Not necessarily so. A multitude of problems have been unearthed by this episode. Some have repercussions yet to be realized.
Here is a limited selection of ten issues.
1. It is believed by many that the brutal killing of those who opposed Qaddafi is now at an end, and so we have a happy conclusion.
Many Libyans were killed during the week that the UN was debating intervention,(and while the US was refusing action without the imprimatur of the UN). For their families, the fact that the UN finally acted will be of little consolation. The non-military actions that Obama took did not stop Qaddafi, and the action of the UN was literally “just in time”..The action finally taken came just as Qaddafi was about to annihilate the remaining rebels.
As Leon Wieseltier points out, the battle of Benghazi had already begun; and it would have been not a battle, but a massacre. If we had acted a few weeks earlier, when the Libyan rebels were about to unseat Qaddafi, a political outcome would have been more likely. And this political change may have led to a reduction of the killings perpetrated by Qaddafi.
2. Many believe that United Nations involvement worked, and that internationalism is a desirable foreign policy goal.
The conclusion many will take from this episode is that multilateralism works and the UN can be counted on to do what it was originally set up to do. However, the historical record suggests that when this sort of situation occurs again, the UN will be likely to fail. Its track record is such that it has failed far more often than it has succeeded. I have argued about the failure of multilateralism previously.
Two examples;(a) the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda was a total failure, and genocide was the result. (b) the removal of UN forces from Suez at precisely the wrong time, during the 1967 blockade by Egypt of a key Israeli port, led directly to the Six Day War between Israel and its neighbors. In the words of Daniel Moynihan, the UN is a dangerous place, and nothing about this current episode promises otherwise.
We must also remember that the United Nations can only accomplish that which Russian and China choose not to veto.
3. The mission authorized by the UN is poorly defined, a formula for disappointment, and a disaster in the making. How much thought has gone into this?
It is fair to ask what is the objective?, What is the strategy? What is the ultimate commitment? For example, is this just a movement to get a no-fly zone, which won’t get rid of Qaddafi? Is removing Qaddafi a goal? Is military support for the rebels part of the objective? The UN resolution, and the actions taken, are not necessarily in alignment.
Barry Rubin has pointed out that this is similar to our initial involvement in Iraq, with even less planning or preparation
4. Will all future military operations by the US occur only with UN backing?
Will there be no input from Congress (there was no Congressional resolution in this case). In the past, it has been standard procedure to have Congress on board. Are we now farming out our foreign policy decisions?
5. Who in Libya represents the opposition?
As pointed out by Barry Rubin, we have no idea who may take over if Qaddafi is removed or killed. The opposition includes several groups, including all of those who despise or fear Qaddafi, those who want to reproduce the Egyptian revolution, tribal forces from eastern Libya which had been a separate country at one time, and various political Islamists.
If the Islamists take over, a very real possibility, this will put pressure on neighbors such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algiers and Sudan to do likewise. .
6. This entire episode has revealed the weakness of President Obama
Col. Muammar Qaddafi has exposed the weakness of President Obama and his foreign policy. Obama, the leader of the world’s most powerful nation, called on Qaddafi to step down. Qaddafi not only refused, but also clearly demonstrated the difficulty that Obama would have in backing up his demands The world saw very easy it is to preach democracy and freedom from the oval office, and how much harder it is to back up such language with military action against a cruel tyrant who slaughters his own citizens.
Qaddafi who has shown a willingness to use any means, including the murder of his own people, has shown that it is possible to defy the President of the U.S. To a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia is doing something similar in its refusal to go along with the U.S. demand for non-inference in Bahrain.
This has now infected other nations. The Middle East is filled with despotic leaders who have ignored demands from Obama. Iran has ignored Obama as it continues to work its way toward nuclear weapons. Obama put tremendous pressure, unsuccessfully, on Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian authority, to get him to back off condemnation of Israel at the United Nations.
Those who had counted on Obama have now been disabused of any notions of his reliability. His promises are meaningless, a lesson not lost on the Israelis. This has meant a loss of any leverage in promoting an Israeli-Palestinian resolution.
7. What about President Obama’s recent speech in which he stated that “In the coming weeks, we will continue to help the Libyan people with humanitarian and economic assistance so that they can fulfill their aspirations peacefully”
The Libyan people and their dictator are locked in a brutal struggle. This is a war, and to think that they will “fulfill their aspirations peacefully” is a delusion. This war was the result of desperation on the part of Libyans, and there is no way they will prevail peacefully. Their initial attempts to protest peacefully were met with their murder by Qaddafi’s forces.
8. The war against Qaddafi represents a major shift in the role of the US.
America may participate, but we will not lead. This is a variant on the sort of isolationism that we have not seen since before World War ll. There are many who now believe that the US should never be involved in a foreign war, and quote President John Adams to make their point. This is a regressive step.
Obama has set the stage for the expectation of non-involvement of America in affairs elsewhere, regardless of the morality of such involvement. Thus Dennis Kucinich and Michael Moore , among others on the far left, are critical of the minimal involvement that Obama has undertaken; they would prefer it be even less.
Prior to Obama’s administration, these radical isolationist voices belonged to a small number, generally considered to be a lunatic fringe. Since the Obama doctrine, however, expectations have been such that these isolationist beliefs now represent a significant proportion of the Democratic party. We have not seen this since prior to Pearl Harbor (and then it came from Republicans)
In the first war against Iraq, the war to liberate Kuwait, George H.W. Bush organized a multilateral effort. However, it was organized and promoted by the United States. This is very different. In a major shift from America’s traditional role, Obama is totally opposed to the US having this sort of primacy., Hillary Clinton has stated “We did not lead this. We did not engage in unilateral actions in any way, but we strongly support the international community taking action against governments and leaders who behave as Qaddafi is unfortunately doing.”
9. Hillary Clinton has stated that “We did not lead this”. Do we really want to boast about this?
Weiseltier has asked what kind of boast is this? According to UN Resolution 1973, Qaddafi has committed “gross and systematic violation of human rights, including arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture, and summary executions” and “systematic attacks…against the civilian population [that] may amount to crimes against humanity.”
The leaders of Britain and France, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy, concluded that an atrocity must be prevented, and said so publically. They did this before Obama did. The rebels in Benghazi are now thanking Sarkozy, not Obama. As Weiseltier , writing in the liberal New Republic has put it, “by the time Obama is finished with his serial opacities and last-minute adjustments about the democratic struggle in the Middle East, he will have forfeited the trust of both its regimes and its peoples”.
Now that the war against Qaddafi is underway, Obama has indicated that command will be handed over to coalition partners “in a matter of days and not a matter of weeks”. Military leadership is distasteful to our commander-in-chief.
10. The Arab league, at first a cheerleader for allied involvement in stopping Qaddafi, have become critical, and seem to be vacillating back and forth.
At first the Arab states were on board, supporting a no-fly zone. When strikes against Qaddafi forces were undertaken, they switched to an opposition stance. This is further indication of their mistrust of the reliability of the U.S. and a further obstacle to Obamas desire of winning them over.
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