The Shape Of The Libyan Quagmire

By Steve Hynd

There are only 1,000 trained men in the Libyan rebel army? Really?

"After the uprising, the rebels stumbled as they tried to organize. They did a poor job of defining themselves when Libyans and the outside world tried to figure out what they stood for. And now, as they try to defeat Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi�s armed forces and militias, they will have to rely on allied airstrikes and young men with guns because the army that rebel military leaders bragged about consists of only about 1,000 trained men.

Those frank admissions came from Ali Tarhouni, who was appointed to the cabinet of the rebels� shadow government on Wednesday as finance minister. Mr. Tarhouni, who teaches economics at the University of Washington, returned to Libya one month ago after more than 35 years in exile to advise the opposition on economic matters."

That figure represents a far smaller defection of army than we were led to believe. Gaddafi has 120,000 men in his armed forces.

Kevin Drum channels some good sense from Adam Garfinkle, and has some of his own. Kevin also has this chart:

 

And notes that the vast majority come from the North-east of the country, which is where most of the Libyans who went to Iraq - more than any other nation - to fight the US presence there hailed from.

Arnaud deBorchgrave over at The Atlantic Council says everythings shaping up nicely for a "Libyan Quagmire" and writes that the Council on Foreign Relations "were almost unanimous in rejecting what they considered a harebrained venture." CFR President Richard N. Haass called it, "Too much too late," while past president  Leslie H. Gelb added: "The reason why neither President Obama nor his coalition partners in Britain and France can state a coherent goal for Libya is that none of them have any central interest in the outcome. � It is only when a nation has a clear vital interest that it can state a clear objective for war. They've all simply been carried away by their own rhetoric."

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies sees three possible outcomes, but no easy "end-state" (per deBorchgrave).

1. A divided group of rebel factions, neutrals and former Gadhafi loyalists with no experience in politics, democracy and governance takes over with almost totally predictable effects."

2. "Mission confusion" is now even more of a risk than "mission creep." If the no-fly zone is literally enforced as a "no-fly zone," it is far from clear that the rebel factions can survive, much less win.

3. There is no clear winner. Libya divides for an unpredictable amount of time into two hostile zones with either a front or cease-fire line and a political and economic struggle goes on with periodic episodes of violence.

And former UK ambassador to Washington Sir Christopher Meyer tweets "What happens when the Libya operation morphs from protecting civilians into taking sides in a civil war?" and "Unless Gaddafi implodes, sooner or later there'll be a need for boots on the ground to police a ceasefire. Better be Arab or Turkish boots." The chances of those boots being anything other than French, British and American are looking pretty slim, though.

It's shaping up to be a very muddy quagmire indeed.