So how is that revolution going?
Libya is more or less completing its first week since the Qaddafi boys and their father skedaddled to we not where, yet. How is the Transitional National Council (TNC) doing in stabilizing Tripoli and restoring basic services?
Only people “on the ground,” as we say in the conflict world, can answer this kind of question. NPR this morning reports that uniformed but unarmed police are back on the street in response to an appeal from the TNC, but water is still not flowing. The New York Times has a description of jockeying for position among rebel leaders, both in Tripoli and at the national level. Looting and other disorder has been reported, but it does not appear to have been widespread. It is hard to get too excited about the guys who stole Qaddafi’s golf cart, but attacks on government offices to destroy files would betray an organized resistance that poses more serious problems.
The main contestations among the rebels seems to be emerging along the Islamist/secularist and east/west fault lines, with Islamist forces from the west who played a major role in liberating Tripoli claiming they are entitled to a good share of the political spoils. War is about power, which abhors a vacuum even more than nature.
It is nice to have the traffic cops back on the street, so long as the local communities welcome them. But the NTC has a big challenge in consolidating the various militia that fought to liberate Libya into a single army answerable to civilian authority, while finding jobs in the police or elsewhere for enough of the excess personnel to prevent them from creating problems. Right now is when some of these militias will find themselves short of cash or food. They can become protection rackets and organized crime syndicates almost overnight.
The terms of art for dealing with this problem are DDR (demobilization, disarmament and reintegration) and SSR (security sector reform). More often than not, they have been treated as two separate processes, with DDR preceding SSR. That is a mistake. They are really two sides of the same coin, one that is supposed to buy the authorities a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, which is one textbook definition of sovereignty.
If the NTC manages to get control of the militias and restore order in Tripoli, its future prospects will improve dramatically. The unseen hand that can help them are those shadowy foreigners–said to be British and French special forces as well as Qataris, and likely also some Americans–who assisted in the Libyan war. They will have enormous influence with the militias they assisted, and deep knowledge of who really did fight effectively. We all would like to see this revolution proceed with Libyan leadership, but that leadership is going to need foreign assistance in many different ways. Helping to unify the freedom fighters and getting them to respect civilian authority is, I am afraid, one of them.
Getting the water flowing again is more a Libyan responsibility. Qaddafi’s Great Manmade River, which supplies much of the country, is said to have been shut off at Sabha, a town south of Tripoli that is still in the hands of Qaddafi loyalists. The perils of a full-fledged military assault on Sebha and Sirte, Qaddafi’s home town, are serious, which is why the rebels have given the loyalists there until Saturday to surrender. Let’s hope they do, and that no serious damage has been done to the water equipment or supplies.
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