By Steve Hynd
Enabled by Western airstrikes, which have decimated Gaddaffi's armor and vehicles at the front, the Libyan rebels have now reportedly taken four towns in a string along the coast and are now advancing on Sirte, which is Gaddafi's hometown and a stronghold for his loyalists.
How is this bad news? Well, the UNSC resolution called for a ceasefire and the allied coalition's efforts were meant to be in support of that aim. Yet the rebels, some of whom have shown their own brutality to detainees or have ties to extremist groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban, show no signs of wanting to halt, call a ceasefire, and consolidate in their own heartlands. They refused to attend an African Union meeting at which the assembly also backed a ceasefire and have made no moves to accept Gaddafi's offer of direct talks. Advancing on Sirte is a major upping of the ante and the going will be far tougher there.
Yet despite the clear language of the UNSC resolution that gives a ceasefire as the coalition's mission, no-one expects airstrikes in support of the rebel's offensive to halt. And absolutely no-one thinks that if the rebels begin reprisal killings in Sirte that the coalition's aircraft will bomb them too. Despite the resolution, it was obvious from word one that the West had regime change in mind.
Meanwhile, In London, the governments neoconservative Defense Secretary, Liam Fox, was giving fuel to conspiracy theorists who see Libya's oil wealth as the primary reason for Western military intervention in Libya when it ignored the Congo, is ignoring the Ivory Coast and is staying largely silent on events in the US Fifth Fleet's home base of Bahrain:
Dr Fox said that the rebel gains could give them effective control of Libya's entire oil export industry, potentially weakening Colonel Gaddafi's grip on power in Tripoli. "As they move round the coast, of course, the rebels will increasingly control the exit points of Libya's oil," he told BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show. "That will produce a very dynamic and a very different equilibrium inside Libya. How that will play out in terms of public opinion and the Gaddafi regime remains to be seen."
And American neoliberal interventionist Joe Lieberman was likewise ignoring all of those other places to advocate a new US military intervention in Syria.
Oh, what a lovely war...
Military intervention was supposed to be a last resort but it seems that it was the first. On the very day of the start of the air strikes, African Assembly representatives were prevented from entering Libya and negotiating with Gaddafi and the revolutionaries.
ReplyDeleteTo be clear: I don't question the legitimacy of the uprising of the Libyan youth nor do I think that Gaddafi was going to surrender power. I do, however, think thhat leaders of the Rebel Council in Benghazi are not particularly pro-democracy combatants, to put it mildly.
And the problem with the UNSCR is that it's so broad and open-ended it basically gives the "international community" (iE the US and its allies) the green light to do whatever they please under the warm blanket of the Security Council and, ahem, the backing of the Arab League of Dictators.
Well, I did say Ajdabiya was going to be a critical place to watch. Turned out to be even more critical than I thought. It appears the airstrikes may have broken the Qaddafi loyalist forces, at least to the extent that they�re unwilling to fight in anything outside of friendly territory. Sirte would certainly qualify as such, but reports from al Jazeera are that columns of military vehicles are leaving Sirte headed towards Tripoli. Qaddafi may be about to find out just how loyal his loyalists really are. If they�re unwilling to stand and fight for Sirte, the war won�t last that much longer.
ReplyDeleteI�m not going to make too much of the rebels refusing direct talks with Qaddafi. After all, we�re talking a guy who announced repeated cease-fires once the coalition started bombing, only to continue using his then-advantage in heavy weaponry to continue shelling anywhere within range that he felt might be insufficiently loyal to his regime, with a few brags about slaughtering said folks thrown in for good measure. His forces continue bombarding Misurata to this day, so far only eased by the airstikes, even though it has been completely surrounded and cut off from the main rebel forces in the east of Libya since before the intervention. He could easily show some good faith by simply leaving the place surrounded and not blasting its people with whatever heavy weapons he can bring to bear if he was actually interested in real peace talks. Given instead he�s taken the opportunity to continue killing as many of the city�s citizens as possible, I�m not too surprised the rebels aren�t looking to play the patsy and let him stall for time with talks while he continues to try and consolidate what position he has left.
The quicker this ends the better. If Qaddafi�s forces can be broken at Sirte and the siege of Misurata lifted, then Qaddafi is basically stuck with a small area in around Tripoli, cut off from the oil fields that have to date supplied him with the revenue to keep himself in power. At that point its only a matter of time, and not likely a long time either.