A star in my firmament wobbles

In a report out Monday, International Crisis Group calls for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire, deployment of peacekeepers and negotiations with Muammar Gaddafi, rather than continuation of the current NATO-led military effort against regime.  Is this wise, or not?

First I should note that the bulk of the report is a first-rate history and analysis of the Libyan Jamahiriya, Gaddafi’s nominally unique “republic of the masses” that in the final analysis operated like other totalitarian regimes.  This analytical part of the report covers the complex institutional setup of the Libyan quasi-state, the main pillars of regime support as well as the opposition, tribes, minorities, the evolution of the popular protests, the Interim National Transitional Council (even critics of the INTC in the east) and other background that I haven’t seen elsewhere.  Even if I might quibble here and there, it is interesting, revealing, well-documented and well-written:  all the things we have come to expect of ICG.

But I have come to expect something else as well from ICG:  policy recommendations that are ill-crafted, only tenuously related to the careful analysis and all too often fundamentally flawed, with an obvious overoptimism about the prospects for negotiated solutions.  This report is a textbook example.

Basically what ICG argues is this:  continuation of the military effort means more civilian casualties, the UN authorized NATO only to protect civilians, ergo it should stop the military effort and begin to negotiate, thereby reducing civilian casualties.  ICG then elaborates a two-phase ceasefire (first a truce then a cessation of hostilities), deployment of peacekeepers, a negotiated exit of Gaddafi and his sons from power that entails guarantees they will not be pursued by the International Criminal Court, and construction of a new Libyan state based on the rule of law that ensures political representation and pluralism.

But this is a false and misleading logic that compares the current situation with an imaginary, even delusional, future in which civilians are protected even though Gaddafi is still in place and his accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity made inoperable.  Wishing won’t make it so.  The idea that Gaddafi is going to play a “constructive role” in the short term, in exchange for relief from accountability for himself and his family is thoroughly delusional, even if the International Criminal Court were willing or able to follow ICG’s unlikely prescription for how to make it happen.  Then there is some brief generic blah-blah about an interim executive that includes Gaddafites as well as the INTC.

There are many other things wrong with this four-page policy addendum to what otherwise is an interesting 40-odd page report.  Where are the peacekeepers going to come from?  Where would they be deployed and with what mandate?  Why do we think that would be acceptable to the INTC or to the Libyan people?  How would they prevent Gaddafi from brutalizing the people who live in the areas he controls?

Most of this policy addendum is just light-headed froth.  ICG is wedded to a formula for negotiation that doesn’t take into account the real situation ICG describes in its own report, a failing that plagues other recent ICG products as well.  Sad to see this star of my firmament wobble so.