One of the occupational hazards of analyzing international relations is that you have a set of mental templates you often impose, either consciously or subconsciously, on the events you’re looking at. Examples: the popular “Chamberlain appeasing Hitler” or the “Vietnam War quagmire” templates.
If you’re not careful, the outcome of your analysis is likely to be both predictable and wrong.
Libya is a classic example of a situation on which analysts wish to impose a template that doesn’t fit. Libya is not Iraq. It’s an example of a multilateral intervention that worked, the subsequent messiness notwithstanding.
The United Nations-authorized NATO action in Libya has been assailed by the left and the right with equal vehemence and equal wrongheadedness. The left tends to hate war unless it’s waged by a Third World dictator who spouts anti-imperialist clichés. The right loves war especially when it is waged without any multilateral interference.
But the conflict in Libya is unique. It began as part of a region-wide protest against Arab dictators, of whom Gaddafi is the nastiest.
He has financed terrorism and subversion across the world, including Latin America and the Caribbean. He brutalized Libya for over 40 years, imprisoning, torturing and killing his own people, while repressing all freedoms.
When in February Gaddafi threatened to eliminate the “rats” who were protesting, the United Nations Security Council, supported by the Arab League, authorized member states, including NATO, to “take all necessary measures” – excluding a foreign occupation force – to protect the civilian population from Gaddafi’s genocidal ambition.
So let’s clear up a few points.
There was no civil war or sectarian strife in Libya. This was Gaddafi vs the people of Libya.
This was a perfectly legal multilateral intervention that had the blessing of the UN and the Arab League. Of course, NATO sensibly interpreted its mandate liberally to provide air cover for the rebels when they started to push back against the regime forces. After all, Gaddafi could have stopped the conflict by declaring a ceasefire and negotiating a peaceful solution. But dictators are arrogant.
Another allegation was that the conflict was a conspiracy by the “imperialist” West to grab Libyan oil. This is not only a gross distortion of the truth; it’s an insult to Libyans who have died fighting for their freedom.
In fact, Western governments cosied up to Gaddafi from 2003 when he abandoned his nuclear weapons programme, renounced terrorism and paid compensation for the Lockerbie bombing. Moreover, Gaddafi’s Libya was already integrated into the international oil markets and had done billions of deals with ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, ENI, and so on. Oil companies prefer the stability of the status quo to an uncertain future.
Much media commentary on the six-month conflict has slandered the Libyan people by suggesting they were incapable of running their own affairs.
There were dire predictions that without Gaddafi, Libya would fall apart or descend into bloody chaos. How could Arabs possibly create a well managed democracy?
This racist rubbish came from the left and the right, and reflected a long-standing colonialist notion that certain peoples are inherently incapable of governing themselves and must either be ruled from without or from within by a dictator.
Even now, as Tripoli has finally fallen and before the Transitional National Council has been able to establish itself as an interim government, sections of the media are gloating about the “chaos” in the capital and Islamist threats.
Of course, the Libyan people face enormous challenges not only in creating their own democracy, but also in establishing the rule of law in a country in which all the institutions of civil governance have been emasculated by decades of tyranny.
They must also avoid seeking revenge and, even more important, avoid prejudging all resident sub-Saharan Africans as Gaddafi mercenaries.
Maybe when the archives in Libya are made public we will learn which Caribbean “revolutionaries” visited Libya and how much they were paid.
Peter Laurie is a retired diplomat and a commentator on social issues. Email plaurie@caribsurf.com