I must say that the uprising in the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya has surprised myself. I calculated that Colonel Gadaffi, being the ruthless bastard he was, would not hesitate to crush any opposition. To be implacable, as the Romans used to be, usually guarantees subservience. I pooh-poohed any suggestion that he might be toppled because of his brutality. I didn’t realise how weak he was from an internal perspective, especially in the east of the country. I knew he had to secure the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie Bomber, to bolster his position at home among the clans – it was always more than just an achievement of prestige – but never that he would lose effective control over more than half the country and with the capital, Tripoli, in uproar against him. The world’s longest ruler has survived many times in the past, notably the US bombing in 1986, but after 42 years, his time has surely run out – it just depends how bloody his exit will be.
Interestingly, the West chunders on about how unacceptable it all is, but they are just words and given the defections of so many Libyan diplomatic staff, how can the western politicians be sure they are complaining to those who speak for Gadaffi? With jet fighters strafing protestors and foreign mercenaries showing no mercy, these actions are far worse than that of Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein in the years leading up to the West declaring war on these dictators (Milosevic changed from forcibly removing people to killing them only when NATO opened the conflict – the difference between ethnic cleansing and genocide, a distinction most people overlook). Yet the West sits on its hands. We see pictures of a supercilious Tony Blair presiding over oil deals with Libya (a gurning Tony Hayward signing the agreement – could this man be any more loathsome) and we have the answer. Gadaffi is supposedly pro-Western, though he threatened British investment if al-Megrahi was not handed over to him. The USA has little leverage but would be unwilling to see a replacement because of his ‘war on Islamism’. Crucially though liberal interventionism has been thoroughly discredited by the Iraq war – there’s the vindication of your legacy, Blair, the rise of injustice in less developed parts of the world.
So we have Laurent Gbagbo flouting election results in the Côte d’Ivoire and violently crushing those loyal to the victor, Alassane Ouattara, while the African Union is Clouseau-like in its attempts to mediate and these massacres in Libya (not to mention Bahrain). In the late 1990s, Britain sent the SAS to Sierra Leone to assist the democratic government in its survival – it was an overwhelming success (unfortunately leading to Blair’s hubris). A few thousand troops and the closure of military airspace to all but western aircraft and Gadaffi and Gbagbo would be almost immediately swept away.
Côte d’Ivoire is relatively simple as there are established norms there – Ouattara would take his rightful position and cocoa prices would fall on the return of stability (there are global economic issues here too). Libya is more a curiosity as there is no ready-made successor to Gadaffi. Maybe it would be best for the United Nations to send a force in with a mandate for aggressive action – given the defection of the entire Libyan delegation, the latter could present it, as ‘representatives’ of Tripoli, as an ‘invitation’ to prevent – in their words – ‘genocide’. Then, the international community would own the outcome in Libya and not just the West or a ‘coalition of the willing’. Given the jitters in Russia and Ukraine over these Middle Eastern protests, the former might veto such a proposal, let alone what China would do. It would then fall to NATO to oust Gadaffi and his mercenaries and for the EU to assist in reconstruction – the Italian stock exchange has been falling over fears of a massive refugee influx into southern Europe, so there are issues of self-interest for NATO nations as well.
Lest we forget, Gadaffi is a tyrant. Back in the 1984, Libyan diplomatic staff gunned down WPC Yvonne Fletcher from their embassy balcony as they dispersed protestors, though the UK did not go to war (take note Israel, not every murder by foreigners needs a military reaction). Gadaffi has supported the IRA, the Red Brigades and many revolutionary Arab movements in the days when he saw pan-Arabism as a positive thing, not today’s democratic pan-Arabism. He has admitted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing and belatedly paid out for it (Fletcher’s family are still waiting for compensation). And he has eliminated all elements of civil society in Libya. Barack Obama has vacillated for he does not want to become embroiled in a Pandora’s Box leading up to trying to be re-elected in 2012 but he is missing a chance to regain the trust of the Arab street after his missteps in the Israel-Palestine dispute. The Libyans seem to believe thee is no way back, for if they give up there will be ferocious reprisals to follow it up. In this scenario, any person of democratic inclinations can only support one outcome – Gadaffi must go and go now.