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What good is the European Union?

Yesterday afternoon SAIS hosted a discussion of “Europe, Italy and the Libya” crisis to celebrate the publication of Federiga Bindi’s Italy and the European Union.  I couldn’t stay the whole time–I had to go teach my post-conflict reconstruction seminar–but I’ll try to give a sense of the hour and a quarter of the proceedings that I was able to attend.

The question on my mind, and I suppose on the minds of many of the Americans in the room, was “what good is the European Union?”  When we need help from it, can we get it?  And to what extent does it even exist on an issue like Libya, where disarray has been more apparent than the Common European Security and Defense Policy?  Will the EU be prepared to take over the post-conflict reconstruction once the war is over?  No one will be surprised I trust that the answers are uniformly gloomy.

I confess that the three Italian presenters are people I know and respect, as is Marta Dassu’, who chaired.  The gloom I felt should not really be blamed on them–they are more observers than participants.

Roberto Toscano, former Italian Ambassador in Tehran now at the Wilson Center, led off noting that the heady days when we were talking with abandon about “revolution” are already over.  In Egypt, the Army and at least part of the Muslim Brotherhood seem to be conspiring to chill revolutionary fervor while in Libya we really don’t know who the rebels are.  The outcomes there could be partition, or a failed state.  Contradictions and double standards hound the intervention there.  There are questions also about Yemen, Syria and Bahrain.  Our interests in these places often conflict with our principles. Maybe we went too far with humanitarian intervention in Libya, and also in Ivory Coast.  Can we say we are protecting civilians and then use military means that necessarily kill some of them?

I was relieved when Roberto finally got around to mentioning the positive part:  people who have been subjects are demanding their rights as citizens, things are beginning to change even if we are nowhere near the end of the transition process.  And then the inevitable but obvious:  the EU will find this a difficult challenge to meet and will require a major military, political and security effort.

Erik Jones of the SAIS center in Bologna, in response to a query from Marta, denied that the U.S. financial crunch would affect the American effort–after all, Defense is the one department of the government still getting an increase, and the Iraq and Afghanistan war expenditures are not included in the budget deal.  U.S. leadership, he went on to note, will still be needed.  There is a broad political consensus in the U.S. in support of U.S. global leadership, but President Obama has been wise to seek contributions from others.  In focusing on that, though, he failed to do all that was needed to line up domestic support for the Libya operation.

The key issues for the U.S. have to do with the timing of when it gets involved, and when it gets out.  It is now out of the direct combat operations but continues to provide unique capabilities like intelligence and refueling, even including close air support in some instances.  One of the contradictions in U.S. policy is that it asks the Europeans not to duplicate U.S. capabilities, but then the U.S. is stuck doing things that the Europeans can’t do. The Americans really don’t care who does what among the allies, so long as someone picks up a good chunk of the burden.  The Europeans though are preoccupied with who does what–whether it is the French or British, the EU or the member states.

The big problem now is when to declare victory.  This is especially important to the Europeans, since what frightens them most is the prospect of emigration from North Africa.  The longer the war goes on, the more likely that problem will grow.  Maybe regime change isn’t necessary?

Federiga Bindi noted that the public discourse in Italy, which for many years shied away from discussion of the national interest because it was associated with the Fascists, now allows for the discussion, but without firm conclusions to date.  Italy’s history in Libya is fraught with problems, from the time of the 1911 occupation, through the colonial period, to Gaddafi’s accession to power and expulsion of the Italians.  Italy depends on Libya today for important slices of oil and gas supplies and would have preferred a negotiated solution.  But that won’t work now, and the Foreign Minister at least (but perhaps not the Prime Minister) is betting on the Benghazi authorities, whom Rome has now recognized.

Italian interests are much more complex than French and British interests.  Essentially Paris and London had nothing to lose by intervening, Federiga thought, while the EU has remained largely silent and Turkey is using this and other developments as a means of emerging as a regional power.

Francesco Olivieri, who now represents the Italian electrical company ENEL in Washington but is a thoroughly  experienced Italian diplomat, doubted that oil and gas had much to do with the intervention.  Libyan exports at 1.6 million barrels per day were not very important during the recession, the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear crisis has sharply reduced Japanese demand, and OPEC has increased production to make up in part for the shortfall.  Whatever the outcome of the Libya crisis, its oil and gas will reach the market, as it did under Gaddafi.

One real issue, Francesco suggested, was what happens to the $60 billion dollars per year, more or less, that flows to Tripoli in payment for its oil and gas.  This could be used for bad purposes if the wrong kind of regime ends up in power.  A second big issue is the problem of refugees–so far the numbers are manageable, but the EU should recognize that it has a common purpose in making sure it stays that way.

European friends:  I appeal to you to stop worrying about whether we should have intervened or not, about why the French went first and the British soon thereafter (with the Germans ducking out), about whether oil and gas were the real issue (or not), about Italy’s complicated relationship with Tripoli, about our interests and our values.  This is all water under the bridge.

The issue now is to make this “humanitarian intervention” come out right.  There are two things required for that:  get Gaddafi and his family out of there (I suspect the Americans, as Hillary Clinton has been implying, are still taking the lead on that, likely with help from the Turks) and begin planning for the post-war stabilization and reconstruction.  That is something the EU can really help with, as it has lots of experience in many difficult places.

Is it time to negotiate with Qaddafi?

Theatlantic.com published this piece of mine this morning:

Apr 11 2011, 9:50 AM ET

It’s time to look for a way to end the war in Libya, but dealing with the regime won’t be easy

Louafi Larbi/Reuters

With self-appointed African Union mediators shuttling between Tripoli and Benghazi meetings with the Libyan government and rebel leaderships to try and end the war, the important question is whether the international community should be negotiating with the Qaddafis. The answer depends on what we are negotiating about and how well prepared we are to pursue our shared interests.

The subject of the negotiations must begin with the departure of Muammar Qaddafi and the rest of his family from Libya. Anything less than that would create a difficult fractious post-war situation in Libya, with a de facto division of territory between Qaddafi-held west and rebel-held east, and with Qaddafi continuing to control Tripoli. If, as former Congressman Curt Weldon proposed, Muammar were to step aside but his son Saif al Islam continued to play a role in the transitional structures, the probability of a successful transition would likewise be reduced to nearly zero.

The Qaddafi family will not give up power in Libya so long as it remains physically present. It has its own armed forces as well as security agents and controls the vast funds derived from Libyan oil exports over the past 42 years. Tens of billions squirreled away in U.S. banks have been frozen, but we can be certain more billions remain unfrozen elsewhere, or stowed in gold ingots in Tripoli. It is not even clear what “step aside” would mean for Muammar, since he has no official position in a Libyan state.

Since Qaddafi’s power does not depend on his position in the Libyan state, he and his sons could well maintain their military and political power even if they were to accept retirement to a desert tent. In any case, Saif al Islam, who was educated at the London School of Economics-educated and has spent much of his life enjoying Europe’s most luxurious hotel, would be unlikely to accept such a life out of power. Libya is quite unlike Egypt in this respect. Hosni Mubarak’s retirement to Sharm el Sheikh was acceptable to the protesters not only because Sharm is far from the maddening crowd but also because the army seemed prepared to guarantee the political transition. It was accepted by the protesters as loyal to the Egyptian state, not to Hosni Mubarak.

Even in Egypt, there are now profound doubts about what the army is up to. Mubarak’s return to the public sphere with a statement flatly denying corruption and the army’s harsh treatment of protesters in Tahrir square the last few days have left many wondering whether the counterrevolution is in full swing. But Libya has no army loyal to the Libyan state. This lack of institutional framework (no constitution, few ministries, no chief of state, not even a real rubber stamp parliament) would make the transition in Libya so problematic.

The ongoing violence contributes to this uncertainty as well. Under violent attack from security forces, the opponents of Qaddafi long ago gave up nonviolent protests for an ill-prepared military assault on his regime. Qaddafi has redoubled his efforts, ensuring that there will be many dead on both sides. Accountability for the violence will not come quickly, but it will probably not come at all if Qaddafi and family are allowed to remain in the country. Most Libyans simply won’t stop resisting if they remain.

So if we are negotiating about Qaddafi and his family departing from Libya, then how well prepared are we to pursue that objective?

Leverage in negotiations depends on what other options you have, should the negotiations fail. In this case, our best alternative to a negotiated solution appears to be to continue fighting. That is not a very good option. NATO will have increased difficulty finding legitimate targets, as Qaddafi’s forces park their heavy armor near schools and mosques and disguise their remaining vehicles to look as much like rebel vehicles as possible. Enthusiasm for the continued military effort is likely to fade. Neither the French nor the British — the leading forces striking Libya — will want to go on ad infinitum, and some of the others participating will likely want to quit even earlier.

Qaddafi knows all this. Like us, his best alternative is also to continue fighting. No one should be fooled by Saif al Islam’s London School of Economics degree or his smooth talk about transition to democracy. Qaddafi and his family give every indication of wanting to preserve their own power. It is hard to know for how long they can go on without running out of money, troops, or cronies, several of whom have already defected. But we can be certain that Muammar regards the issue as one of life or death and will therefore fight on until he finds a way out that enables him and his family to survive.

That is what we may very well need to put on offer: a way out, but one that will only be available if Qaddafi and family to take advantage of it soon. That is what the five AU “mediators” could usefully offer: a comfortable retirement, available only for a short time, in Mauritania, Mali, Congo, Uganda or South Africa. Of these, only Mauritania is not a state party to the International Criminal Court, which may eventually want to prosecute. Venezuela is another possibility, but it is also a state party to the ICC, and the Americans are unlikely to welcome Qaddafi as a resident of the Western Hemisphere. For those who worry that the ICC might never get hold of Qaddafi, remember Charles Taylor, who was allowed to retire to Nigeria only to later be captured and put on trial.

It appears doubtful that the AU delegation will take the kind of hard line required to get Qaddafi to leave Libya. It is much more likely that it will come back with a vague, wishy-washy offer from Qaddafi that sounds good on paper but enables him and his sons to remain in Tripoli making all sorts of trouble and preventing transition to a new, more representative regime. We should not be tempted. Compromised conclusions to NATO air wars in Bosnia and in Kosovo have proven frighteningly difficult and expensive to implement. Nor should we be tempted to put boots on the ground, as we know from Iraq and Afghanistan how painful that can be.

A satisfactory outcome in Libya will be one that vindicates Responsibility to Protect and allows the Americans to stand aside from the post-war reconstruction and leave it to the Europeans, whose energy interests give them motive and means to be helpful to the New Libya.