Tag: Libya

Another BIG Friday

The President of Syria has thumbed his nose at the protesters, suggesting that they are operating on an Israeli agenda. After much vacillating and many negotiations, the President of Yemen has called for his supporters to rally in Sanaa tomorrow, a day when the opposition is also planning another mass rally in the capital. Gaddafi’s favorite Foreign Minister has defected in London and other regime stalwarts are thought to be on their way, even as the rebels lose ground to his forces in eastern Libya and the CIA tries to train them into a more effective fighting force.

Tomorrow promises to be a big day. Will Syrians respond en masse to the President’s provocation? Will the opposition in Yemen push the vacillating president past the tipping point? Is the Gaddafi regime near collapse?

It would be easy to be cynical and suggest that the answer to these three questions is “no.” It is not likely to be “yes” to all three on the same day. I’m more inclined to hedge a bit.

Maybe the best bet is on clashes tomorrow in Sanaa. The more nonviolent they can keep it, the better the chance for the protesters to win a confrontation. Violence will evoke a violent response on the part of the security forces, and in a violent confrontation the protesters lose. President Saleh would appear to have more than nine lives. He definitely wins the survivor prize so far, but nine is a finite number and he is certainly close to it.

Syrians have long given Bashar al Assad the benefit of more doubt than can seriously be alleged to exist. They really haven’t even reached the point of asking for his departure. They stop short of that by asking for suspension of the emergency laws that prop up his regime. He has responded violently and likely will again tomorrow. Numbers of demonstrators, and non-violent discipline, will be vital to the outcome. Whatever residual support for him the Americans (and Israelis) harbor, on grounds that he provides stability, should by now have been dispelled: he is as bad as his father, and likely as violent too. His father killed 20,000 at Hama.

Libya is the great uncertainty. By all rights, Gaddafi should be gone already. But he holds on in Tripoli and has again fought back the rebel advance. The Americans are loudly debating whether to move ahead with arming the rebels, in accordance with a covert action “finding” that the President has already signed. I suppose they expect this noisy display to scare him. He is definitely frightened, but that makes him hold on tighter. There is no way he can stay on in Libya if he loses this fight, and he knows that sooner or later justice will find him if he leaves.

Maybe none of these issues will be decided tomorrow, but it would certainly be a fine trifecta if all three went down on April Fools’ Day.

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At last some post-war thinking

Michelle Kelemen on NPR today says the London conference will discuss post-war plans, and the Secretary of State met there with a representative of the Libyan opposition, contrary to what had been foreseen. The Transitional National Council is said to have issued a statement promising a constitution and free elections that includes the following:

there is “no alternative to building a free and democratic society and ensuring the supremacy of international humanitarian law and human rights declarations.”

The locution is a bit backhanded, but still all to the good.

The President last night was at pains to emphasize that regime change by military means would be a mistake, because that is what we did in Iraq and look what a mess it got us into.  Alfred North Whitehead would have called this a “fallacy of misplaced concreteness.”  What caused the mess was inappropriate, inadequate and incomplete transition planning, corrected by a hastily arranged and ineffectual occupation.

We are at risk of committing at least the first part of this mistake in Libya (I trust no one will occupy, pretty much no matter what happens).  The President is correct that the United States can duck primary responsibility for the reconstruction of Libya.  That belongs to the Transitional National Council (TNC).  The Europeans should provide most of the support, since they are close neighbors to Libya, which supplies a significant portion of their oil and gas.

But there is no substitute for American leadership in ensuring that this process gets off to a good start.  Washington is sending diplomats to Benghazi to establish liasion with the TNC.  This is important, even if late.  I hope the Europeans, including the European Council and Commission, are doing likewise. Keeping Washington and Brussels on the same page is vital.

The other big piece of the diplomatic puzzle is getting Gaddafi out of there.  Military pressure is indispensable in doing this.  If the battle for Sirte turns into a stalemate, it will be much harder to convince Gaddafi and his family to board.  The President said our allies would keep the pressure on, even as the U.S. lightens its military activities.  I hope that is going to happen.

Some will regret Gaddafi escaping, but in my view there will be time and place for his accountability.  He is not yet indicted by the International Criminal Court, which I hope has investigators on the ground in Libya.  Remember Charles Taylor:  he was allowed to flee to Nigeria, but arrested not too long thereafter.

Of course it is possible that the Libyans will inflict accountability on Gaddafi and his family in the time-honored way.  That is not in my view a preferred outcome, because it is a bad foundation for the New Libya and could well lead in the direction of replacing Gaddafi rather than changing the regime to the freer and more democratic one the TNC says is unavoidable.

PS: Here, courtesy of The Guardian, is the Interim National Council (aka Transtional National Council) Vision for a Democratic Libya.  First rate, but I fear written in English.  That is not entirely a good sign.

 

 

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Still vague on those post-war plans

Here are the comments on the President’s speech that I posted this evening at The Danger Room:

Clear enough to me: atrocities in Benghazi would have reverberated against US interests and values, not only in Libya but elsewhere as well.  Because allies and partners are now picking up the burden, US military and taxpayers will need to do less.  Libyan frozen assets will pay for reconstruction.

He said little about post-war plans, other than Libya is for the Libyans, who should lead the transition.  Gaddafi has to go, but that is not a military task.

The difficult trick now is that transition.  If that goes well, this operation will be remembered well.  If Gaddafi remains, or the transition is botched, it will be remembered badly. We need the diplomats to get Gaddafi out of there.  And we still need those post-war plans, which should include a big assistance role for the Europeans.

In case you missed the speech:

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Post-war plans are needed, urgently

Tonight the President will clarify what we are doing in Libya and tomorrow a London diplomatic conference will assemble to congratulate itself on what we have achieved so far.  But I doubt either one will seriously address post-war planning, which is needed right now.  The President can’t call attention to it because his message will be that we aren’t going to spend much money on Libya, which Secretary Gates has already classified as “not vital” to the U.S.  The London conference won’t do it either, because the Europeans should lead on support to Libya but they are still in their all too usual disarray.

So let me offer some guidance about the elements I would consider important in a post-war plan.  The first thing to lay out is a satisfactory end-state, as Gideon Rose so eloquentlysaid in the Washington Post last weekend.  Let me borrow from the ill-fated lexicon of George W. Bush and suggest that a Libya (note the singular) that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself would be a satisfactory outcome.

I don’t mean to suggest that this is a U.S. responsibility; only that Washington should be happy if that is the outcome.  I fully expect the U.S. to avoid responsibility for the post-war efforts, which in my view should fall mainly to Libyans and Europeans.  Libyans because it is their country.  Europeans because it is their neighborhood (and a major oil and gas supplier).

There is no cookie-cutter approach, but post-Cold War state-building efforts have generally focused on five broad objectives.  Here they are, with some pertinent questions (with thanks to my SAIS class for our discussion of several weeks ago):

1.  Safe and secure environment: Libyans seem to quickly organize themselves for community protection, but in the aftermath of this war the big problem is likely to be the Gaddafi loyalists, who may conduct the kind of stay-behind operation that plagued the Americans in Iraq (and troubled Benghazi just 10 days ago, when Gaddafi appeared on the verge of taking the city).  There is also likely to be a serious rash of revenge killings, especially targeted against Gaddafi’s mercenaries.  Preventing emergence of an insurgency and blocking the revenge impulse will require serious leadership on the part of the Libyan rebels.  Failure to prevent revenge killings will incite further resistance from Gaddafi loyalists and haunt the New Libya for years to come.

There is also a need to secure whatever chemical and other weapons of mass destruction Libya may still have, as well as an eventual effort to collect first heavy and then lighter weapons still in the hands of rebels and Gaddafi’s forces.  Failure to do this will mean a constant threat to the state from well-armed organized crime, which will grow naturally out of whatever smuggling operations both the Gaddafi regime and the rebels have been enjoying.  The objective should be to establish the state’s monopoly on the legitimate means of violence, with all deliberate speed.

2.  Rule of law: Libya’s police force will need vetting and reform–this is something the Europeans have assisted in many other places and should help with in Libya, at Libyan invitation.  I know precious little about the judicial system in Libya, but as the head of the Transitional National Council is a former Justice Minister I trust we can rely on him to ask for what the judicial system needs.  Some prisons seem to have been emptied during the fighting, releasing extremists.  They will need to be recaptured, before they begin to wreck havoc in Libya or get to Somalia.

3.  Stable governance: This will be a big challenge. Libya under Gaddafi was a “republic of the masses” and lacked many functioning state institutions.  The Transitional National Council (TNC) will presumably be the seed from which other governing institutions–a parliament, ministries, a presidency, local governments–will grow. The TNC needs to remain broadly representative of all elements in Libyan society if it is to have the legitimacy required.  As the rebels move west, this will mean enlarging or changing its composition, a difficult maneuver while trying to keep so many moving parts in place.

Of course it is possible that a new strongman will emerge to replace Gaddafi and he’ll decide what happens next.  But experience elsewhere suggests that once people taste freedom it is hard to reimpose dictatorship.  The UN has extensive experience helping to reform and reconstruct governing structures, not to mention holding elections and writing constitutions.  The Libyans might do well to look there for help.

4.  Sustainable economy: Libya has the great benefit, and curse, of oil and gas in sufficient quantities to make its 6.4 million or so citizens reasonably well off.  Nothing of that sort happened under Gaddafi.  It is hard to imagine where all the money went, though the freezing of about $30 billion in Libyan assets by a single U.S. bank gives a hint.  The oil and gas companies will get in and fix whatever is physically broken once a safe and secure environment is in place.

What the Libyans need to focus on is making sure they have the fuel they need for their own consumption and establishing a system for oil revenue that makes citizens better off.  They could do worse than consult with Norway, which uses its oil revenue to fund an endowment and spends only the earnings on the endowment, but that is just one option.  Alaska’s approach, which provides per capita payments (much like welfare, but don’t tell Sarah Palin I said that) to each of its citizens, is another.  The worst approach is the most likely one:  giving the revenue to the government, which will then have no need to establish a rapport with citizens to fund its voracious desires.

5.  Social well-being: The most immediate problems are food, water, shelter and health care for the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people.  But Libyans have been through four decades of a reality-defying dictatorship, one that ultimately divided them into loyalists and rebels.  National reconciliation does not come naturally and will need care and attention. It will be easier if those revenge killings are few.

Again:  I don’t mean to suggest that all this is a U.S. responsibility.  It is not.  The Libyans should take the lead.  But Washington needs to think hard about ensuring that the necessary assistance is available.  That doesn’t cost much–we’ve already paid for the nation’s diplomats, at least until early April–but it is vital if Libya is to get where we want it to go:  govern itself, sustain itself, defend itself.

PS:  Those who are going to want to vaunt the Libya operation as a triumph of responsibility to protect should be particularly concerned about the lack of post-war planning.  The ultimate judgment of whether this was a wise humanitarian intervention will depend not only on the military outcome but also on the civilian results.

PPS: Steven Metz discusses the insurgency issue.

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Who said bombing would not work?

The headlong retreat in response to bombing occurring now in Libya is familiar to those of us who followed the Bosnian war, at the end of which the Bosnian Serb Army collapsed due to NATO bombing of its communication nodes.  The rebels are not really winning the war, they are just filling the vacuum created when Gaddafi’s loyalists hightail it west.  My guess is the retreat will continue until Sirte, Gaddafi’s home town, where he will try to have his loyalists make a stand.

This raises two important questions:

  • How will order be maintained and services delivered in the liberated areas ?
  • What will happen when the loyalists arrive back in Tripoli?

My hope is that the Libyan penchant for local councils will continue to manifest itself.  While there is certainly some possibility of abuse, broadly representative local committees that include tribal, religious and secular community leaders committed to restoring order and providing services would be an appropriate way to fill the governance gap until something else can be arranged.

The stand at Sirte is not likely to last long if the bombing campaign continues at anything like its current ops tempo.  The impending return of the loyalists to Tripoli raises several issues.  Will there be a rising there that will put a quick end to the Gaddafi family’s rule?  Will the loyalists clamp down even harder on a capital that has already seen a great deal of regime violence?  In either event, there is a real possibility of heightened tragedy for the capital.  The diplomacy to get Gaddafi out of Libya should by now be in full swing, even if invisible.  Let’s hope it is successful in the next week, which is likely the amount of time before the rebels are at the outskirts of Tripoli.

There is another urgent issue:  protection of the Gaddafi loyalists, including the mercenaries responsible for a good deal of the worst violence against civilians.  If the past is a guide, they will face ferocious revenge.  Likely some already have.  It is important to prevent “eye for an eye” retribution, because it will set the new regime off in a bad direction.  Accountability is important, but it will take time and fair process.  The New Libya should not start with murder.

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Endgames: local legitimacy is key

It is easy to get caught up in the drama and thrill of events as people throughout the Middle East lay claim to inalienable rights, but we shouldn’t forget  that revolutions don’t often end well.  What can and should we be doing to try to ensure that the hopes and aspirations of so many don’t end up serving the interests of a few?  And what vital U.S. interests need attention?

Libya.  Hillary Clinton will be attending a meeting Monday in London to talk about the future of Libya, which is a particularly difficult case because the country largely lacks a state.  What it has though is a strong tradition of local councils, most evident in Benghazi but also apparent in other places that have been liberated.  If these local councils can gain a degree of legitimacy by being inclusive, they could become the foundation for a decentralized post-Gaddafi regime.  My guess is that this would be far better than building the new Libya from Tripoli outwards, which won’t be possible in any event until Gaddafi departs.

As for U.S. influence, the most obvious way to guarantee it is to provide arms to the rebels, as Blake Hounshell suggests. There are many downsides, not the least of which is eventual misuse of the weapons to commit atrocities.  Revenge killings are more than likely in the aftermath of Gaddafi’s fall, which is one of the reasons he and his minions hold on so tenaciously.  That said, I would opt at least for the rocket-propelled grenades the rebels need to defend themselves against Gaddafi’s armor.  The bigger question is whether supplying them is done

  • without changing the existing UN Security Council resolution (1973) on grounds that they are part of the “all necessary means” required to protect civilians (either overtly or clandestinely), or
  • by adopting a new UNSC resolution that recognizes Gaddafi’s failure to comply with 1973 and adopts additional measures required to unseat him.

If arms supplies are to get there in a timely way, the former is obviously preferable to the latter.  But the latter is far better from the perspective of maintaining legitimacy of coalition operations against Gaddafi.

Yemen.  President Saleh’s days are numbered, but he is insisting on an orderly transition of power.  That is not a bad idea.  It would certainly be preferable to the kind of mess we are seeing in Libya, and it really does not matter much whether it occurs this month or next.

To whom should Saleh hand over?  The parliament is little more than a rubber stamp, some of the army leaders who have gone over to the protesters are arguably worse than Saleh when it comes to cozying up to terrorists, the political opposition is undistinguished and the protesters are still an amorphous mass.   Here is both challenge and opportunity for the Americans, in whose interest it is to guarantee an orderly transition to someone who will be at least as good as Saleh in pursuing Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is not saying much.  Here, too, they might look to grassroots tribal, religious, political, civil society and other leaders outside Sanaa for at least a validation of legitimacy.  Part of the Yemen problem is that the current regime really has little or no support beyond the capital.  Building a new regime that has serious representation from both north and south would be preferable to just finding another headman like Saleh.

Syria.  It has indeed gotten serious, as I’ve already suggested, with widespread demonstrations yesterday met with regime live fire, killing how many dozens no one knows:

This time it will be hard for President Bashar al Assad’s spokesperson to claim that he ordered no firing on demonstrators, though that won’t stop them from trying, but the protests have so far stopped short of asking for his ouster.  Bashar is still regarded by many Syrians as above the wrongdoing they associate with the regime, though it is hard to believe that his personal immunity will last much longer.

Bashar has been no friend to the Americans, even if Senator John Kerry thinks we owe him rather than the other way around (at least that is what he said in an appearance at Carnegie Endowment last week).  But again orderliness is next to godliness, now that we’ve got the U.S. military preoccupied with two and a half wars.  Bashar can still survive, but he needs to get serious about the reforms he promised this week, and stop the live fire on demonstrators.  I can’t for the life of me think what it is about the events of the last couple of months that would convince an autocrat that firing on protesters would help him survive.  It seems to me the evidence is all on the other side of the proposition:  let them demonstrate and adopt reforms to meet their legitimate demands, then you might survive.

The others.  The Moroccans seem to have understood that proposition, and until yesterday the Jordanians as well.  The Bahrainis, with Saudi support, seem ready still to test the effectiveness of regime violence and in the process turn popular protests into sectarian strife between a Shia majority population and a Sunni regime.  Their success is unlikely to be long lasting.  It is hard to think of anything worse for Saudi Arabia than linking its fate to the survival of the Al Khalifa monarchy in Bahrain, but that appears to be what the Saudis are determined to do.

 

 

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