peacefare.net

Egypt is important, but Libya and Yemen are urgent

While I sympathize with Robert Kagan and Michele Dunne on the importance of Egypt to the Arab world, Cairo is proceeding healthily if not rapidly in the right direction.  Libya and Yemen are more urgent problems for U.S. policy makers.

A week ago, the question of whether to intervene in Libya was already urgent.  Nothing that has happened since has made it less so.  Gaddafi has managed not only to hold Tripoli but to demonstrate that he can punch into the western oil town of Zawiya at will while hassling the rebellion in the east from the air.  It is only a matter of time before his superior fire power, more consolidated position and inclination to attack civilian populations causes a major disaster. If you are interested, Jeffrey White provides the best analysis of the military situation I have seen.

I understand of course that diplomacy is slow and more art than science.  But I also understand that leadership is critical to getting diplomatic ducks in a row.  While clear enough about wanting Gaddafi out, and correct to want to consult rather than impose, the time has come for some American decisions.  theatlantic.com will publish in the next hours my list of options to be considered.  Here I would like to focus on the importance of two other things:  getting Gaddafi out of there and maintaining a unified alternative to him.

Gaddafi has spent the last couple of days dangling the possibility of negotiations.  He knows this will divide his opponents, some of whom will be ready to talk.  But talk will inevitably lead to Gaddafi remaining in Libya, something that really won’t work.  The regime is so closely tied to his family that for any serious change to take place he has to be out of there, with his offspring.  He long ago gave up any claim he might have had to a peaceful retirement in a desert tent.  The best he can hope for now is Zimbabwe or Venezuela, something that should be negotiated not with the rebels but with Harare or Caracas.

The rebels are showing signs of trying to get organized, as well as indications that they are finding it difficult to remain united.  They need to remember what Ben Franklin said just before signing the Declaration of Independence:  “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”  American diplomacy should by now be in touch with the Interim Transitional National Council.  (I’ve included the website link, even though the precise relationship between the website and the council is not entirely clear to all observers, because it contains interesting documents.)  It is exceedingly important that the international community start channeling information and assistance through an institution that can claim legitimacy with most of the rebellion.  That will help consolidate unity.

Yemen, a frontline state in the fight with Al Qaeda, is becoming almost as urgent as Libya.  President Saleh is losing his grip.  Yesterday he used lethal force against student demonstrators, and he has lost the loyalty of important tribes.  Yemen has not plunged as precipitously into civil war as Libya, but the potential is certainly there, as separatists both in the north and the south may see an opportunity to achieve their goals in a country where declining oil production, water shortages and qat addiction have already weakened the state dramatically.

The Americans should  be aiming for a negotiated solution in Yemen, closer to the outcome in Egypt than in Libya.  Sanaa has a reasonably moderate opposition, one highly compromised by association with the regime but now standing up a bit more courageously to demand that Salih leave this year rather than stay on to the end of his term in 2013, as he has proposed.  In Yemen, too, some sort of unified opposition/protester institution is needed to speak with one voice and carry forward a delicate political maneuver to remove the president by the end of this year, using the meantime to develop and implement an alternative that can begin the difficult process of reconstructing a state that is very close to collapse.

To intervene or not to intervene

That’s the question today.  With Muammar Gaddafi striking out in several directions with superior fire power and aircraft against the Libyan rebels,  at least some of the rebel leadership in the east is talking about the need for foreign military intervention, including a No Fly Zone (NFZ), possibly bombing of Gaddafi’s amply hardened bunkers, and weapons.  Secretary of Defense Gates has already said “no.”  American assets are tied up elsewhere and there is no telling where it will end once we start.

He has a point.  The Libyans should take care of Gaddafi on their own.  With no clearly and legally constituted Libyan authority to ask for help, it is unlikely that the Russians and Chinese are going to go along with a UN Security Council resolution authorizing even the NFZ, never mind broader use of force.  For the U.S. to intervene unilaterally in Libya at this point would be seen as injudicious, even criminal, by a large part of the world.  And even with UNSC authorization, it is arguable that we just don’t have the capacity to handle another mess.

But failing to act and watching Gaddafi reestablish control over Tripoli, if not of the rest of the country, is also not an acceptable option.  It would prolong the agony, including the agony to the rest of the world of soaring oil prices that threaten to stall the global economic recovery.  It would open the possibility of Libya becoming a fragmented and failed state like Somalia, one in which international terrorists might well find comfort and haven.  And it would leave Libyans at the mercy of a homicidal non-maniac, one who has long used murder and mayhem purposefully to ensure control.

So what do we do?  I find myself sympathetic with former National Security Advisor Steve Hadley, who argued last night on CNN for a more intense diplomatic effort.  I’m not really sure what he had in mind, but in my book that would mean in the first instance making sure Gaddafi’s sources of financing are completely closed off.  Is oil still being exported?  Where are the payments being deposited?  Are all those accounts frozen?  The U.S. Treasury has likely done its job well, but have the Italians, the Germans, the Maltese, the Cypriots and the Greeks?

I think we also need to talk in the UNSC about a new resolution that would authorize arms exports to the Libyan rebels.  Paul Wolfowitz argues that it was a mistake to impose a blanket embargo, thus punishing the rebels as well as Gaddafi, who is already well-armed (and his suppliers won’t balk at violating the embargo).  He is right, but it is a mistake that can and should be fixed as soon as possible with some diplomatic exertion, by opening an exception to the embargo for the anti-Gaddafi forces.

I continue to be hesitant about the NFZ, largely because of the difficulty and expense of implementing it.  It would be far easier, as I’ve already said, to nail anything Gaddafi flies to the tarmac even before it takes off.  In lieu of that, our diplomats should be talking with the Russians, Serbs and Czechs about ending any supplies or technical assistance they might still be providing to Gaddafi’s air force, which they have amply assisted in the past.

None of this can substitute for indigenous efforts to get rid of Gaddafi.  Tough as it is to assemble and protest, Friday should not pass without a clear show from the demonstrators in Tripoli that they want him gone.

It would also greatly improve the situation if the Libyans could organize to speak with one voice.  It is not yet clear that any of the committees in Benghazi and other cities is more than a local phenomenon.  Despite the difficult circumstances, Libyans need to do now what Gaddafi has prevented them from doing for more than 40 years:  organize a national institution that can speak legitimately for the Jamahiriya.  That may require some international assistance in linking up the various rebel cities in a more coherent way.

If none of this diplomatic effort works, we’ll have to revisit the essential question over the weekend, which means putting the assets needed into place right away.

One intervention needs to start now:  relief for the more or less 150,000 non-Libyan refugees who have fled Libya and accumulated on the border with Tunisia, as well as assistance to the many internally displaced Libyans.  This will not be easy, but providing food, water, sanitation and shelter to these people is vital if we are to avoid a massive humanitarian catastrophe.