Tag: United States
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.
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Stop the civil war
The Gaddafi family this morning seems bent on civil war. It is using the Libyan army and hired thugs to empty the streets of Tripoli, especially Green square, and to hold the relatively few towns in the west that have not yet fallen to the protesters (or should we call them the rebels?). Despite high level defections, the Colonel and his sons are using military force (tanks, RPGs, in addition to aircraft and helicopters earlier in the week) against the civilian population.
The risk here is civil war. Already what has occurred could leave Libya with a bitter legacy of murder and mayhem, now against the population, but likely in the future against the regime. Or, worse, the regime could survive, reimposing order and slaughtering its opponents.
President Obama was clear enough yesterday that Gaddafi’s behavior is unacceptable, but the Administration still seems to lack a robust plan for stopping it. Sending the Secretary of State to a Monday meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission is not going to do it–that’s a body that has disappointed human rights concerns repeatedly. And Monday is still a long way off.
It looks now as if the best hope to avoid the worst is action from within Gaddafi’s closest circle. Who knows whether that is a real possibility, but the high-level defections that have already occurred suggest it might be. It might also be useful to make it clear to the non-Libyans defending Gaddafi that they are welcome to defect–so far the rebels appear to have been more inclined to kill them.
I am still puzzled by the lack of asset and travel freezes, as well as an arms embargo. Sure, they would be mostly symbolic at this point, but symbols count. And where is the Sixth Fleet?
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Time to act
Here is President Obama’s statement from three days ago:
I am deeply concerned by reports of violence in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen. The United States condemns the use of violence by governments against peaceful protesters in those countries and wherever else it may occur. We express our condolences to the family and friends of those who have been killed during the demonstrations. Wherever they are, people have certain universal rights including the right to peaceful assembly. The United States urges the governments of Bahrain, Libya and Yemen to show restraint in responding to peaceful protests, and to respect the rights of their people.
This statement had a good impact in Bahrain, where the monarchy saved its skin by withdrawing army and policy from Pearl square and allowing the Crown Prince to make a truly conciliatory statement.
But today was a day of carnage in Libya according to many reports: jet fighters strafing demonstrators, thugs shooting into crowds, perhaps 250 fatalities. While the State Department has expressed “grave concern” and ordered an evacuation of its own personnel, President Obama has been silent and no specific counter-action, even an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, has been announced. We need to hear from the President what he is prepared to do.
It is time to act. The Twittersphere is full of recommendations for a no-fly zone, which would be fine by me if the UN Security Council can move quickly to order one. I am not convinced that unilateral U.S. action along those lines would be welcomed even among the protesters in Libya, and we should note that it would prevent defections like the two colonels who flew to Malta today. But letting it be known that one or more aircraft carriers is moving towards North Africa even before the UNSC acts could inhibit some of Gaddafi’s worst behavior.
What else could be done? The Arab League is said to be meeting tomorrow to discuss Libya. That is only a good thing if they drop their usual hesitancy to criticize a reigning sovereign and denounce Gaddafi’s attacks on his own people. I hope the Americans are demarching (that diplomatese for talking to/asking) every Arab League capital by morning pointing out that what Gaddafi is doing is counterproductive and will rouse the public in many other countries.
In any event, I trust the Americans are making it clear in Tripoli that what is going on needs to stop right away. It is not only Libya that is at risk–if Gaddafi succeeds in his effort to repress the demonstrators, which is possible though unlikely–you’ll see every tyrant in the Middle East copying his lead. That would not be a pretty picture.
PS: A few more things the UNSC could do: freeze assets and ban travel of regime principals, prohibit arms sales, send the Secretary General to Tripoli to negotiate for deployment of a group of observers.
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Why the violence?
Violence isn’t new to the wave of Tunisian flu that is sweeping through the Arab world, but it seems to be getting worse, hitting Bahrain, Libya and Yemen during more or less the past 24 hours.
Why?
The short answer: this is the regime response to seeing the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt taken down. While some accounts are not clear, it is certain that the violence in Bahrain this morning was initiated by the police, who attacked a peaceful (and mostly sleeping) encampment in Pearl Square unprovoked. Police and allied thugs seem to have been initiating violence in Yemen as well. The accounts of events in Libya are sketchy, but I would bet that there too the police are rioting. Kings and presidents are concluding that Ben Ali’s mistake was to flee without a fight and Mubarak’s was to step down without cracking down.
How should peaceful protesters deal with this development? They are unlikely to beat the police and thugs in a street fight. What they need to do is mass greater numbers, stay particularly attentive at night, befriend the security forces, beef up their connectedness to foreign and domestic journalists, and make sure their own cadres include people from across the social, ethnic, sectarian and other divides. If they can’t do these things, they need to stay away from confrontation until they can.
You can also hope that the Americans will be telling the regimes in Sanaa and Manama that crackdowns of the sort they are pursuing are counterproductive and likely to spawn more violence. But I doubt Washington has all that much sway in either place at the moment, and they surely don’t want one of those regimes to fall without a safety net in place.
President Saleh is no doubt declaring himself indispensable to the war on Al Qaeda, but there really isn’t much time before the “use by” date on that bag of potatoes. One way or another, he is finished within the next few years (if not the next few months). Time to get some sort of safety net in place, preferably a more democratic one with some prospect of holding north and south together by sharing power between them.
Qadhafi is of no concern in Washington–they would just as soon he take his tent to the desert.
But the Khalifa monarchy in Bahrain is a real dilemma for the Americans. You know: 5th fleet vs. the possibility of a Shia (some presume Iranian-dominated) regime. But the question for the Americans (and for the regime) is whether the kind of police riot the monarchy indulged in this morning will make things better or worse. My bet is worse, maybe much worse if it turns what has been a mild-mannered expression of dissent into a sectarian war that the Sunnis are likely to lose. It is not enough for the monarchy to have allowed municipal and legislative elections last fall. And the 5th fleet is more in danger from getting behind the curve than getting out in front of it. Mr. Obama needs to remember what he said about universal rights–they won’t stop at Manama.
Nor should they if they are going to make it all the way to Tehran, where in many respects the violence and crackdown is at its worst. That is the good news: the theocracy is feeling threatened by Tunisian flu. It dreads the fate of Mubarak, as well it should.
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Wasting your money, Tomislav?
This is inside baseball, but for those of you who might be interested: former U.S. Ambassador William Montgomery’s September 2010 registration with the Justice Department as an agent for Tomislav Nikolic, President of the Serbian Progressive Party.
I would be the last to deny a retired Foreign Service officer whatever income he can find, and 7500 euros a month is not pocket change, but I would also want to know whom he represents when he gives interviews calling for the dissolution of Bosnia. To be fair he was doing this even before the date of his registration, and he is of course entitled to his views, which are contrary to mine.
The partitions Montgomery proposes are sure formulas for re-igniting conflict in the Balkans, with devastating results, including the formation of an Islamic Republic in central Bosnia. Remember Bill? We called that the “non-viable, rump Islamic Republic that would be a platform for Iranian terrorism in Europe.” Hard for me to see how that is in the U.S. or Serbian interest. But there is of course no longer a need for Bill to worry about that. He works for Nikolic.
The bigger problem may be for Nikolic: he is going to have a hard time being welcomed in Washington unless he takes a pro-Europe, One Bosnia line. Associating himself with Bill Montgomery’s advocacy of partition of Bosnia and Kosovo is no way to overcome Nikolic’s past association with the hard-line, anti-European ethnic nationalism of the Serb Radical Party, from which he split in 2008.
What does Montgomery do for Nikolic’s money? He’ll call his old friends at State, the National Security Council and Congress to get appointments. This is something that the head of a party in the Serbian parliament could and should have done by his own secretary, or by the Serbian embassy.
If that doesn’t work, I’ll help him, for free. I am vigorously in favor of Washington hearing from all parts of the political spectrum in Serbia. But it is simply outrageous that people get paid to make appointments in Washington–our public servants should all be told to tell paid agents that appointments can only be made directly, not through intermediaries.
If Nikolic wants to pay Montgomery to write his talking points, that’s fine with me. But they’ll have to say something different from what Montgomery has been saying in public.
Wasting your money, Tomislav?
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Maliki ueber alles?
While we’ve all been preoccupied with Tunisia then Egypt, an Iraqi Supreme Court decision has called into question the independence of the central bank, the electoral commission, the human rights commission and the integrity commission. Reidar Visser has commented on the electoral commission aspect, but arguably the central bank is even more important. The big issue is accumulation of power in the hands of the Prime Minister.
Here are the most obviously relevant articles of the Iraqi constitution:
Article 102:
The High Commission for Human Rights, the Independent Electoral Commission, and the Commission on Public Integrity are considered independent commissions subject to monitoring by the Council of Representatives, and their functions shall be regulated by law.
Article 103:
First: The Central Bank of Iraq, the Board of Supreme Audit, the Communication and Media Commission, and the Endowment Commissions are financially and administratively independent institutions, and the work of each of these institutions shall be regulated by law.
Second: The Central Bank of Iraq is responsible before the Council of Representatives. The Board of Supreme Audit and the Communication and Media Commission shall be attached to the Council of Representatives.
What the court apparently decided is that agencies with an “executive” function have to be subordinated to the executive branch, not the Council of Representatives, in order to respect the separation of powers. This is obviously pretty deep legal water in which I don’t know how to swim, so I am reluctant to dive in.
But it also raises important questions about the survivability of democracy in Iraq, where accumulation of power has a long and unhappy history. Independent agencies are a frequent feature of the landscape in democratic societies, and independent central banks are regarded as absolutely vital to macroeconomic stability, which Iraq has enjoyed for the most part since the fall of Saddam Hussein. If executive branch supervision refers exclusively to financial probity and other administrative questions, that is one thing (though perhaps not entirely without problems). If executive branch decision is going to mean that these institutions are no longer in any serious sense independent, that is another.
We shouldn’t leap to conclusions, but I certainly hope the U.S. embassy in Baghdad is inquiring and letting the Prime Minister know that those who fought and paid for Iraq’s relative freedom would not be interested in seeing it undermined by an overly aggressive effort to centralize power.
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