The witches’ brew

Almost immediately after the United States, the United Kingdom and France began their relentless air attacks on Libya to enforce a no-fly zone across that country, India “regretted” these strikes and, in a carefully-worded statement, urged all parties concerned to “mitigate” an already tragic situation and not “exacerbate” it. Russia and China, along with this country, Germany and Brazil, had abstained from voting on the UN Security Council’s resolution authorising the imposition of no-fly zone on Libya, and have deplored West’s action in strong terms.

Even more significantly, the Arab League, that had supported the UN Resolution 1973 (but for whose support the resolution would never have been passed), has radically changed its position. Its secretary-general Amr Musa, a former Egyptian ambassador to India, has “slammed” the Western nations for having gone “too far”. The African Union has demanded immediate cessation of bombing. More such voices are almost certain to be raised as Libya’s bombing by the Western “coalition” goes on, even though, according to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US, Admiral Mike Mullen, the no-fly zone in Libya is already a reality. American strikes have also destroyed a building within Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s residential compound, although Washington says he is not a target.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that Col. Gaddafi, who has ruled his country for 41 years and can be more tyrannical than other dictators and despots in the region, has no intention of giving in. His megalomania has no limits. Yet, his declaration to fight to the bitter end the “colonial crusader aggressors”, who he has compared to Hitler, should not be dismissed. Nor should anyone underestimate the unflinching support he enjoys from his Gaddafa tribe in a land that is divided and decentralised along tribal lines without any pluralistic tradition. The rebels demanding freedom, democracy and release from Col. Gaddafi’s tyranny, concentrated around Benghazi in the eastern part of the country, are, no doubt, elated by the Western military action, especially because missile strikes have destroyed the armour and other assets of the Libyan Army on the march on Benghazi.
However, the longer the air strikes last, the greater will be the anti-Western anger in Libya and elsewhere, even among those who intensely dislike the colonel. Although the US is denying this, civilian casualties have already resulted from Western bombing and more will take place. This would accentuate popular fury.
There is another powerful reason why the Western military action in Libya would evoke irate reaction not in Libya and Muslim countries alone but all over: the manifest double standards of the US and its allies. Libya is not the only country where an oppressive regime is slaughtering innocent civilians. In Bahrain, not far away, a 30 per cent Sunni minority — with military help from neighbours such as Saudi Arabia — is meting out the same treatment to the 70 per cent Shia majority. Why don’t those anxious to save Libyan civilians and offer them humanitarian assistance have any sympathy for the poor Bahrainis who have also demanded UN and US intervention?
Similarly, in Yemen another long-lasting tyrant is killing protestors as mercilessly as Col. Gaddafi is doing in Libya, but no one seems to be bothered. Is it because Yemen is an American ally? As Nicholas Burns, a former US under-secretary of state and currently professor at Harvard, said on CNN, the three Western nations — with the support of only two small Arab states, United Arab Emirates and Qatar — have plunged into aerial action in Libya without any clear idea of their long-term aim.
The mandate of the Security Council is confined to saving civilian lives by enforcing a no-fly zone and providing them humanitarian aid. The regime change is not a part of it, nor is the provision of arms to the rebels, even though the Western coalition is, in effect, siding with one of the two sides in the Libyan civil war. Yet, both US President Barack Obama and secretary of state Hillary Clinton have kept up the litany: “Gaddafi Must Go”.
How is this objective to be achieved without using the same methods that the US, during the regime of President George W. Bush, resorted to against Saddam Hussein in Iraq? But then “boots on the ground” in Libya are forbidden by Resolution 1973. At the same time, Col. Gaddafi’s option to quit and flee, in the unlikely event of his wanting to exercise it, is also closed on him, for he is to be hauled before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes. Nothing could be more hypocritical than this, for neither the US, nor France, Russia, or China accept the jurisdiction of the ICC. Nor, for that matter, does India.
No wonder there is intense and widespread speculation that the Western objective might be to partition Libya into eastern and western regions, between the east ruled by the rebels and the west by Col. Gaddafi and his sons. The idea of Col. Gaddafi continuing as the ruler of the whole country is obviously distasteful. The editorial in this newspaper on Sunday (Is Military force needed in Libya), underscored the irony of the US going to war in the third Muslim country in eight years, and that too under a President who is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize and had, in a famous speech in Cairo within months of moving into the White House, tried to reach out to the entire Muslim world. This plus his country’s weariness with the Afghan war should explain President Obama’s decision to reduce America’s current lead role in the operations in Libya to a minimal, at best supportive one. This would mean handing over command to either Britain or France and not to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, because this military alliance functions on the principle of unanimity, which is lacking. Neither Germany nor Turkey support Odyssey Dawn. Altogether, luckless Libya has now become a massive cauldron of witches’ brew. The situation is tailor-made for chaos, confusion and grim consequences.