Despite American and European statements that Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddaffi must step down and leave the country, he shows no signs of doing so. The rebels will accept no political settlement that does not involve the stepping down of Gaddaffi. NATO continues to launch air strikes to target and destroy government military forces, but remains deadlocked on what to do next. Various nations have called for a cease fire. The rebels are so far unable to dislodge Gaddaffi from power, and Gaddaffi appears unable to defeat them. Libya is sidestepping sanctions and continues to demonstrate no apparent loss in conventional firepower. The rebels continue to receive arms, training and supplies from unknown sources. The UN has taken a position of negotiating with both sides to provide humanitarian needs. Civilians are dying in a civil war. Basically, this is a mess.
In hindsight, it is still unclear what should have been done. American neoconservatives have said America should have acted sooner with robust intervention to depose Libya's government. Germany, India, China, and others have said the best course of action was for the West to remain uninvolved militarily and allow the conflict to resolve itself internally. Some who initially opposed or were silent about military action are now saying NATO has overstepped its mandate. There are also many who have great praise for the limited intervention advocated by the Obama Administration.
Gaddaffi's statements about the rebels fueled a belief that the widespread slaughter of civilians would occur were he to be victorious . This is the essential rationale for the imposition of the no-fly zone over Libya. The fact that at least that this massacre has not happened is touted as a measure of success by the Western powers and is used as a healthy rationale for preventive war more generally by neocons. The West could have stayed out and a large-scale massacre could have taken place. Or, maybe not. We will never know. One could speculate on a number of outcomes. What is clear is that the no-fly zone is preventing a possible mass slaughter, were it planned or not.
However, the intervention as it has been conducted so far has not achieved the goal of getting Gaddaffi to go anywhere. The Gaddaffi regime shows no signs of losing its grip on power in the greater half of the country. No cease fire, called for by all the parties involved, seems imminent. Without the direct intervention of Western troops, the rebels appear unable to overcome the superior training and firepower of the Libyan military. Gaddaffi has adopted the guerrilla tactics of the rebels, making it difficult for NATO air forces to distinguish between themselves and the rebels. In fact, NATO has twice mistakenly struck rebel forces. Since the intervention, there has a been see-saw of activity. Sometimes the rebels take a key position, then the government takes it back. Back and forth they fight over what is often the same territory. Leaders in Western capitals have called for the Gaddaffi regime to go, but appear unwilling to do what it takes to bring it about.
The consequences of a protracted stalemate are unknown to Western planners, including intelligence agencies if reporting is correct. As the fighting and the sanctions continue to damage the Libyan economy, the people will continue to suffer. It will take longer to rebuild when the conflict ends. The consequences of a government victory are unclear as well. Gaddaffi, should he win, has promised a mercy of sorts for those who rebelled. We do not have any idea of how to deal with him should he keep his word or not. If he is merciful and pardons the rebels and commits no atrocities, does the West lift the sanctions and no-fly zone? Or does it continue to impose it because he refused to step down, an act that will almost certainly cause him and his regime no harm but will certainly hurt the Libyan people. Or, if there is a rebel victory, who will rule? The French government has already recognized a number of high-ranking former Government officials with close ties to large multinational corporations. They are running their government-in-waiting out of a luxury hotel in Paris. Will the people of Libya accept these leaders, or will there be a dispute among the parties within Libya that leads to another violent conflict? No matter what happens, or what is likely to happen, what is clear is the West does not know what to do about it. From the very beginning, the West has been playing it by ear, conflicted and unclear about its goals in the war or how to achieve them.
The West has gotten involved in war of undetermined length, with undetermined goals, and with undetermined consequences. I believe whenever the West finds itself with such a scenario, the most prudent and wise course of action is to keep the military out of it. Especially in a scenario where the United States or its allies has not been directly or indirectly attacked or threatened. Those who favor intervention of even the most limited sort, as the Obama administration has, use the speculation of a possible slaughter as justification for preemptive action. But in truth, as the policies reveal, the administration and Western allies do not really know what is going to happen. Nor do they fully appreciate the consequences of any actions they have taken or are contemplating taking. Naturally, one cannot predict the end result of any military intervention prior to undertaking it. But once it gets going, the goals, expectations, and chances of success should be clear. In this case, these things remain as they were at the beginning: unknown. This is the sort of thing that should be raising red flags.
The key reason the Western powers do not want boots on the ground is not because they feel it would be difficult to defeat the Libyan army. They know that would be easy. They don't want boots on the ground because they realize it means an exercise in nation-building. The West does not want to get involved in any more nation-building exercises in Islamic nations, having been drained of blood and treasure in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The West feels they can help from the air, and that this will not bring about the need for the nation-building. But this is erroneous thinking. It isn't the types of military power used that creates the nation-building problem. It is the policy of regime change itself. It wont matter if NATO only uses air strikes, or sends in ground troops. Once the West decided Gaddaffi has to go, and that they are willing to use military force of any sort to bring that about, the West will be responsible for what comes in its wake. You will hear over and over again "the Libyan people have to decide their own fate." But if they are unable or or unwilling, the West is bound to decide it in some measure. They will not allow a government overthrow to descend into chaos.
Whatever the end result is in Libya, peace will only happen via a political solution between the parties involved. Or, one side will have to achieve a complete and conclusive military and political victory over the other, a prospect that appears unlikely in the near future. There is no Western military solution to the Libyan Civil War. The West can, however, use the varying tools of diplomacy to achieve the best ends possible, as Germany, China, India, and Russia have called for. Diplomacy should always be the first, middle, and last choice of any international political problem. Military action should always be the very, very last. Even then, it should only be used when a direct, imminent threat to the safety of this nation or our allies are at stake. Or when there is clear and obvious danger of a great crime to humanity. Mere speculation of such an event is insufficient cause for action. Furthermore, the conclusive evidence of such a great crime should be so present and imminent that only military action will prevent it. No such situation has been presented with the case of Libya. What we have seen so far are the sorts of events that are common in a civil war. If there is not a political solution to this conflict, it will have to play out the way all civil wars throughout all of human history, including our own, have played out: They will have to fight it out until one side wins, or they will decide to make peace on their own.
The West is slowly and perhaps mistakenly increasing their intervention in the war as slowly as possible and playing it by ear. First the intelligence operatives were sent. Then came the special forces. Now comes the expensive, high-tech military hardware as the Obama administration has announced drones are being sent in to provide the rebels with close air support. Once again we are witnessing slowly escalating involvement in the conflict as we have so many other times before. Mission creep. At the end of this road there is always one thing commonly found: an American or Western experiment in nation-building. If this conflict is different and that result does not come about, it would be an event of extraordinary luck. But as it stands today, that is exactly where the United States and its allies are headed.
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