Juan Cole: How the No Fly Zone Can Succeed

[flpoljunkie]

How the No Fly Zone Can Succeed

Posted on 03/21/2011 by Juan

The United Nations no-fly zone over Libya is risky but it can have a good outcome under certain conditions. Above all, it should look more like Kosovo than like Iraq.

(I should clarify that I think US participation in this effort should have been conditional on a vote of the US Congress. However, likely the Europeans and Arab League would have pursued the policy even in the absence of US involvement. In any case, my question as an analyst is where things might go from here.)

1. It should not be open-ended, but rather should have an expiration date. The no-fly zone is a response to a specific humanitarian crisis (the Qaddafi regime was firing tank and artillery shells at urban crowds protesting it). That crisis must not draw the UN allies into a years-long quagmire. (Such a situation developed in Iraq in the 1990s and contributed to the ultimate destruction of that country).

2. It should be a no-fly zone, not a war on the Qaddafi regime. Qaddafi tank columns should be interdicted from moving on Benghazi or Tobruk. But tanks just sitting around in Tripoli should not be targeted.

3. Once the no-fly zone is in place and Benghazi and points east are protected from reprisals, brokers should intervene to negotiate a diplomatic solution.

4. Officers who committed war crimes, as with ordering live fire on civilian crowds, must be prosecuted, but not everyone in the Libyan military should be tarred with that brush.

5. Amnesty might be offered to pro-Qaddafi officers and politicians provided they break with the dictator and send him into exile, as happened in Egypt and Tunisia. It is desirable that there be some continuity between the old regime and the new one, and that tribal factionalism and feuds and reprisals be avoided.

6. Countries opposed to or lukewarm toward the no-fly zone, but which are themselves democracies, such as India, Algeria and Russia, could be enlisted to meet with the officer corps in Tripoli and impress on them the need for a transition to parliamentary elections.

It is not impossible that there will be an outcome the world can live with, as happened in Bosnia and in Kosovo. In both places, local forces took the lead on the ground. Kosovo as a state originated in an externally enforced no fly zone.

more...

http://www.juancole.com/2011/03/how-the-no-fly-zone-can-succeed.html

[frazzled]

1. I've been thinking precisely Kosovo as well

As I go through Prof. Cole's list, point by point, I muse:

Points 1 and 2: we seem to have been semi-reassured that there is an expiration date, that it is response to humanitarian crisis, that it is not war on Qaddafi regime. Whether these pan out to be true or not remains to be seen, but it is at least the stated intention of the U.S. at this moment.

Points 3, 4 and 5: yes, hopefully: brokered diplomatic solution, sufficient war criminal trials to hold account but no overreaction (as with Baathists in Iraq, which really backfired).

Point 6: who knows, wishful thinking.

I think an "outcome the world can live with" is precisely the kind of "realist" foreign policy the Obama administration defines itself with and seeks. It means no one on the edges will be satisfied, however.

[vaberella]

3. I agree on all the points you mentioned.. 6 is definitely wishful thinking. n/t

[tabatha]

2. Once again, informed commentary.

From February 17, a peaceful protest movement broke out throughout Libya. Civilian crowds gathered without violence downtown, in Benghazi, Tobruk, Dirna, Zawiya, Zuara and even in the outskirts of Tripoli as in the working class town of Tajoura. City notables and military men in the east of the country formed a provisional government. Many diplomats declared for the provisional government, as did many officers and even cabinet members.

The Qaddafi regime responded with brutal violence to these non-violent protests. Early on, live fire was used against protesters in Tripoli itself. Last week, convoys of tanks rolled into Zawiya, supported by heavy artillery, firing on civilian crowds and on civilian apartment buildings. The tanks occupied the city center, and there are reports of a mass grave of the protesters. They were just protesters. They were easily defeated because they did not know, and most of them still do not know, how to handle a weapon. There were large numbers of self-inflicted gunshot wounds in the rebel ranks.

and

That the world community has intervened in Libya but not in say, Yemen and Bahrain, has raised cries of hypocrisy. These charges are largely deserved. It is worth noting, however, that nowhere else in the Arab world where there have been widespread protests has the regime consistently responded with such massive brutality as in Libya. Yemen, with the sniper massacre of crowds on Friday, is moving in that direction, but Qaddafi has likely killed thousands since February 17, not just dozens.

A couple posters here have charged that the protesters were violent. NOT true.

[vaberella]

4. Have you read the post that half of them are Al Queda?

Thank CNN for that one.

[tabatha]

5. Half of them? Link?

In yet another bizarre outburst, embattled Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi is claiming that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda are behind the uprisings across Libya, an absurd assertion given the breadth of the popular demonstrations and the protesters' demand for political freedoms.

But U.S. and international counterterrorism officials aren't laughing. Al-Qaeda already has a foothold in Libya --albeit a small one -- along with another armed radical Islamist organization. And the growing chaos across Libya could be the perfect medium to trigger an explosive growth of Islamist extremism, some terrorism experts say.

That's a prime factor in the Obama administration's deepening concern that at least parts of Libya could collapse into ungoverned spaces, joining Somalia and Yemen as places where al-Qaeda and its franchises are active and growing, threatening not just surrounding countries but capable of mounting attacks inside the United States as well.


http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/02/24/in-libyas-chaos-an-opening-for-al-qaeda/

[vaberella]

6. I was told this on DU. It's sarcasm. n/t

[tabatha]

7. Sorry, I missed the sarcasm.

Sometimes it is hard to tell.

[vaberella]

12. De nada...I ALWAYS miss it.

But I'm also too lazy to use the emoticon. :D

[ReggieVeggie]

8. I think US participation in this effort should have been conditional on a vote of the US Congress

did you miss that?

[tabatha]

9. I agree with that, even if I support the halting of Gaddafi's massacre.

[ReggieVeggie]

10. and what consequence should Obama suffer for it?

[tabatha]

11. I have no idea.

There are better minds than mine to deal with it.

[flpoljunkie]

13. Our spineless Congress has avoided these votes and deferred to the president.

Why would they change now?