As the conflict in Libya enters its final stages - with Tripoli all but captured by the rebels to Colonel Gaddafi, the Mad Dog himself in flight and his birth place now laid siege with huge irony by forces from Misurata, who were themselves under the cosh for long periods this year - the initial critics in the West of even limited UN-endorsed, Arab League-backed intervention now are trying to recalibrate their arguments, so arrogant are they that they are incapable of eating humble pie and face up to the call of “I told you so.” Simon Jenkins and Con Coughlin, vociferous in their denunciations that the war wasn’t over in a couple of hours and so intervention must be judged a failure, are some of the most egregious commentators, though they are far from alone. The Arab Spring is unpredictable and to paraphrase the famous quip about economic predictions, it might be said that war forecasting was invented to make weather forecasting look good. Indeed, with fighting still in the streets of Libya’s capital, but indeed winding down, the Guardian editorial grumbled that in narrow military terms intervention had succeeded and that a majority of people had wanted to see the downfall of the Colonel, before immediately being downbeat of Libya’s prospects post-Gaddafi, as if a failed Libya would give them vindication.
Coughlin ponders gloomily that Libya is the new Afghanistan – this despite the first rule of international relations being that everything is local. He thinks – hopes – tribes will tear Libya apart and therefore NATO should not have acted in conjunction with states like Qatar to bomb Gaddafi out of power. I think people like Jenkins and Coughlin should go and live in Syria, where they will find a very receptive official audience for their cranky, patronising spouting.