By Steve Hynd
Dave Schuler correctly points out that the UNSC resolution on Libya has "mission creep" built into its very bones:
The United Nations Security Council Resolution on the situation in Libya is available online. In summary it authorizes member states to act as required to prevent harm to Libyan civilians, authorizes the establishment of a no-fly zone in Libyan air space, strengthens the arms embargo against Libya, and strengthens the freeze on Libyan assets in foreign banks.
It does not authorize member states to support rebels, defend armed insurgent groups, remove Qaddafi from office, or take steps to prevent Qaddafi�s use of mercenaries.
And adds: "Are militias armed with automatic weapons and rocket launchers civilians? I don�t think so." Joshua Foust asks the $64,000 dollar question: "What happens if...Gadhafi pulls back and the rebels surge forward?" Michael Hanna tweets that its hard to imagine they would be bombed, despite the UN resolution, in calling for a ceasefire, implying exactly that.
Its clear from speeches by both Obama and Hillary Clinton that the US and its allies envision the end-state in Libya to be Gaddafi's fall from power. Who is to be the instrument of that if not rebel forces and not coalition forces on the ground, which are currently explicitly excluded by the resolution?
James Joyner links to a piece in the Financial Times:
�There was this premature triumphalism about the passage of the UN resolution but what is the plan for dealing with this entity called Libya?� says Brian Katulis at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think-tank. �You could have this very awkward phase emerging where Gaddafi is entrenched while there�s a rump state in eastern Libya and some but not all states in the Arab world work to isolate the regime.�
Despite the growing international support for the mission, senior military officials remain worried that policymakers � in their rush to stop Colonel Gaddafi � have not fully thought out the campaign�s endgame.
...�Assume the effort is wildly successful. Now what? Separation of forces and a no-fly zone forever?� asked a senior US military official involved in the operation�s planning. �No one wants that, nor can we or our friends afford that.�
The UK Independent's leader today asks the same question:
That is where things get difficult. Nothing in the UN resolution authorises regime change. The mandate is purely protective. If the opposition fails to secure outright victory, there is a very real danger that the outside world will have fostered the creation of a divided Libya. And we could then find ourselves embroiled in a protracted civil war.There is also the likelihood of innocent casualties if our planes are called into action. We should know by now that aerial bombing is never as accurate as the military chiefs like to pretend. During the Kosovo conflict, Nato planes accidentally bombed a convoy of Albanian refugees and also the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Similar disasters now could see Arab opinion turn very quickly against the intervention.
Because the West and its Arab allies - only two of whom, tiny Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, will now actually join the forces enforcing the UN resolution - cannot afford to police from the air a partitioned Libya embroiled in a long civil war, and because Western leaders Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama have said we will have regime change, we will see mission creep. Either the rebels will be allowed to go on the offensive, probably with arms provided by the West, or there will be a new resolution at a later date allowing ground troops for nation-building "assistance". Now that the West is involved in a shooting war - coalition jets are hitting Libyan army vehicles and tanks - it cannot withdraw with the "job half done" without "losing face". It's a refrain familiar from Kososvo, Afghanistan and Iraq. We've opened yet another almighty can of worms.
Update: The US has joined the war by initiating over 110 attacks by tomahawk cruise missiles upon the Libyan air-defense network so that US planes can fly more safely over the country.
I wonder if John Kerry and other interventionists who pooh-poohed SecDef gates' assertion that this would have to be done will now apologize to him? And at a cost somewhere in the region of $110 million for this first strike alone and an estimated cost of $300 million a week, where are the deficit hawks?
One last thought for now: there are reports of civilian casualties in Tripoli from the US missile bombardment. We know from Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan that such casualties are inevitable in this kind of air-war. If the number of civilians killed by allied action outstrips the number caused by Gaddafi's forces, so far a bit over 1,000, what then?
That linked story regarding something over 1,000 deaths is almost a month old, and the fighting has been far, far heavier since, including some pretty severely destructive battles in places like Zawiya, Ras Lanaf, and Brega. It�s a pretty safe bet the number is considerably larger now.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise, I can�t argue with much in your post. Absent some fairly favourable sequence of events, this does appear to be a mission that isn�t going to end quickly or cleanly. Air strikes should be able to knock out Qaddafi�s advantages in heavy weapons, at least in the sense that they can keep his forces from moving them around easily. As more than a few examples have shown, so long as the forces are well dug in and camouflaged, air power alone won�t destroy them. And as those examples, I�m thinking Kosovo and the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon here, also showed, it�s that when the main military targets have been bombed to little or no effect, the target list starts expanding to other �strategic� targets, which is where the civilian casualties really start mounting.
The best case scenario is that the disabling, or at least degrading, of Qaddafi�s air power and heavy weapons advantages allows the rebels to regain the territory they�ve lost in recent weeks and finally force a mass defection and overthrow of the regime. Of course, even that scenario leaves the question of what happens should the rebels be no more considerate of civilians in the areas they conquer than Qaddafi has been.
Anything less than that leaves the US, France, UK and others involved stuck enforcing an unstable status quo for an indefinite period, or deciding they need to up the ante in order to get to the desired outcome of Qadaffi�s ouster, something I�m not unsympathetic to. And to be honest, even given all that I can�t say that I�m against the mission. �Do something� isn�t the best justification for an intervention, but when you have the power to do something, doing nothing is also a choice whose consequences you have to accept responsibility for. At this point, the current air assault remains the best course I can see, even if I greatly doubt it will end as cleanly as hoped.
Hi BJ,
ReplyDeleteSince this is also the 8th anniversary of the war on Iraq, its worth mentioning that "do something is better than do nothing" was also an argument advanced then. It worked out so well...
Regards, Steve
Maybe, but when making comparisons to boost my case, I usually try to find examples a little closer to the situation at hand. The Iraq War started with the US government trying to convince everybody else they should do something, with very few believing them. No Arab League support. No UN resolution. No ongoing popular uprising and brutal suppression taking place. While Saddam wasn�t as colourfully eccentric in his depredations, I don�t doubt he was any nicer than Qaddafi when it comes to suppressing dissent, and recent clamp downs in Bahrain, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia shows that none of these guys are exactly cuddly. But the Bush administrations contentions to the contrary, there wasn�t a popular movement on the brink of overthrowing Saddam when they went in, nor was said uprising in the process of being brutally suppressed by the superior weaponry at the dictators disposal.
ReplyDeleteThe suppression was of the more ordinary type, and had somebody said that the US and others should intervene in Libya a year ago or any other time, it would have made no more sense then the invasion of Iraq did. Taking a relatively stable country and upsetting the apple cart is almost certainly going to lead to a worse situation for everyone involved. Right now though, Libya is far from stable, the apple cart was already upset by its own people.
As I said, I don�t think this is actually a good option, but it may be the best of a raft of bad options, though frankly I think they may have taken too long to get started.
It's not merely "where are the deficit hawks" but the underlying assumption that enormous excess capacity on the part of the U. S. military is a necessity for preserving the international system that I find troubling.
ReplyDelete