By Steve Hynd
Here we go - mission creep is about to turn into mission gallop.
Following fast on an open letter from Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicholas Sarkozy which openly called for regime change in Libya - printed in the NY Times and elsewhere - the BBC reports:
The French defence minister has suggested a new UN Security Council resolution may be needed for Nato allies to achieve their goals in Libya.
...Speaking on French radio, Mr Longuet conceded that ousting Col Gaddafi would be "certainly" beyond the scope of the existing UN Security Council Resolution 1973 on Libya, and could require a new council vote.
"Beyond resolution 1973, certainly it didn't mention the future of Gaddafi but I think that three major countries saying the same thing is important to the United Nations and perhaps one day the Security Council will adopt a resolution."
It's highly questionable whether such a resolution would pass. Russia has already accused the US, UK and France of exceeding their UN mandate on Libya and would probably veto a resolution calling for troops on the ground - which is what a regime change resolution would need. Bombing alone will not remove Gaddafi from power. Nor will the rebels, who are described as being in "hopeless disarray" - and nor will wishful thinking in op-eds. The French get this even if Obama doesn't yet.
There'd be a lot of pushback in NATO too. Several members of the military alliance have turned down Anglo-french pressure to add their aircraft to the ground-strike force. Italy's Defense Minister told Reuters that "The current line being followed by Italy is the right one and we are not thinking about changing our contribution to the military operations in Libya," while the Dutch Foreign Minister told the BBC that "This question actually goes beyond Security Council Resolution 1973," .... "For the Dutch government, it is of the utmost importance to fully respect the framework of the resolution."
Daniel Larison explains what will happen in the short term.
What that means in practice is that the fighting that endangers civilians will drag on much longer than it would otherwise, the humanitarian crisis for displaced and besieged civilians will get progressively worse before significant aid will be able to reach them, and a war waged in the name of the �responsibility to protect� will continue until the regime has been defeated. There are no obvious incentives here for the western tribes still allied with Gaddafi to break with him. Despite a vague reference later in the op-ed to �an inclusive constitutional process,� the intervening governments have given every indication that they are going to treat the Benghazi leadership, which is dominated by members of eastern tribes, as the legitimate or preferred leadership in Libya. That effectively closes the door to a negotiated end to the fighting in the near term, and it gives Gaddafi�s allies no incentives to abandon him.
Sure, in the next six months or so. But beyond that we've got a couple of ticking clocks - particularly the French and U.S. presidential elections - that give me cause to speculate it won't remain the case for a whole year. Sarkozy has no intention of going to a vote next April with the Libyan war he cheerled more than any other Western leader in an expensive and inconclusive stalemate and he has shown recently in the Ivory Coast that he's willing to act unilaterally on the ground and drag the international community along with him. With his own re-election vote looming, Obama may become more willing to sidestep the UN and go along with a French plan to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. Cameron, a poodle to both the others for different reasons, will go along.
By next AprilI I think there will be French, and probably UK and US, troops on the ground in Libya. If Sarko's politically smart, he'll try to get to a "toppling the statues" moment just before his re-election date and leave the inevitable descent into a counter-insurgency quagmire for after he's won his next term. Of course, that may mean that by Obama's November date with the voters, the Libyan liberation cakewalk has obviously turned into another Iraq.
>> "three major countries saying the same thing is important"
ReplyDeleteWhat this means, imho, is that they have identified, and have conducted satisfactory negotiations with, the person they'll back as the next leader of Libya; and therefore they can now proceed with a more proactive approach to aiding the anti-Khaddafi forces.