It's Complicated
by digby
Middle east expert Fawaz Gerges,a fierce critic of the Iraq invasion, was on CNN this morning talking about the dynamics in the middle east and Libya:
Halla Gorani:Why not more of an active role by these members of the Arab league to give this more of an Arab flavor than a western one?
Fawaz Gerges: Well I think that's what Secretary Clinton is trying to say. That the Arab states are active players. What she really means is the United Arab Emirates and Morocco and Iraq to a lesser extent. But remember she also spent a great in the press conference talking about Bahrain, and how the Unites States has impressed on the Gulf Cooperation Council that they should really engage the opposition in Bahrain.
Here you have the United States is coalescing with the United Arab Emirates to take part in the war in Libya, while the United Arab Emirates forces intervened in Bahrain to suppress the opposition. it tells you a great deal about the predicament of the United States and that's why the United States is very conscious about not wanting to take the lead in this campaign because of sensitivities. The United States wants to support the campaign the campaign as opposed to taking the lead in this fight.
Gorani: So this is very interesting. Because on the one hand you have the United States speaking out against Muamar Qaddafi, supporting an effort to protect civilians in Libya. On the other, they have allies in Gulf countries such as Bahrain as you mentioned, where some of these forces, including the UAE are doing seemingly contradictory things.
Where will this all go from a regional perspective?
Gerges: Absolutely, the United Arab Emirates, you're talking about Saudi Arabia, you're talking about Quattar which supported the intervention of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain. Let's take a look at the scenario. Once you start military operations, there are unforeseen consequences. The question on the table are the following: How many civilian casualties in Libya will the international community tolerate? As you know, Qadaffi has already inserted his forces in the urban areas. That is the air power alone will not decide the outcome in Libya.
Muamar Qaddafi controls more than 80% of the territories. He controls more than 80% of the population. Second you will see Qaddafi saying today, tonight and tomorrow that this is all about Western imperialism and American imperialism. Once you have American casualties in Libya, it will change the dynamics regionally and internationally.
You can imagine Qaddafi taking a CNN reporter to show him an operation, a military campaign, that basically results in civilian casualties in Libya. The result is that even though Secretary Clinton and the President have made it very clear, and even president Sarkosy have made it very clear that the goal of the campaign is to protect civilians, look at what Secretary Clinton has said: the goal is to create conditions in Libya that will bring about the toppling of Muamar Qaddafi. These are the conditions. Very ambitious goals...
They go on to talk about the fact that it's inevitable that air strikes will kill civilians and that Qaddafi will exploit that situation for his own gain. Gerges continues:
Gerges: You asked me a question about the Arab states. Look at the position of the Arab League. The Arab league has made it very clear. Support a no-fly zone over Libya. But at the same time the Arab league has made it very clear they are against western intervention in Libya. What this tells you is that the Arab leaders are very aware of sensitivities in their own countries. That is that Arab public opinion could easily change and shift and I think here President Obama was extremely sensitive to the resistance of Arab nations to intervene militarily.
I fear even though the United States is not leading the operation now, as the conflict escalates, the United States will own this operation. That's my fear. In the next few days this will become and American operation consciously or unconsciously the United States will own the war in Libya... that's why President Obama was very resistant initially to any military intervention and that's why secretary Clinton has insisted that the Arab world take an active role in this war.
The Arab world will not take an active role in this war. It's a European campaign plus Canada plus the United States and a symbolic role for the Arab League.
Fredericka Whitfield: So I also hear you saying then that these initial efforts from this coalition then will ultimately backfire.
Gerges: My fear and as we have seen throughout major military campaigns in the middle east, the middle east is a highly fragile, highly volatile, highly complex with a great deal of anti-Western sentiments. My fear is that Qaddafi, who is a thug and a nasty man has already positioned himself and his forces to say that he is fighting Western imperialism and American imperialism, and if civilian casualties occur in Libya, you're going to see public opinion on shifting in the world. And my fear is also that the opposition in Libya might be tainted if the intervention leads to a great number of civilian casualties...
People would like Qaddafi to go, there' no question about it. But they are very suspicious basically of a more potent Western operation. This is why it tells you a great deal about how difficult the Arab position is. "We support a no-fly zone but we do not support western military operations."
He supports the Libyan intervention, by the way.
I wish I didn't feel so cynical about this. But evoking the R2P (Responsibility to Protect doctrine) in this instance just strikes me as a recipe to undermine it. You cannot separate what's happening in Libya from what's happening in Bahrain or Yemen or the horrors of Cote D'Ivoire or any number of other places except for their various strategic (or non-strategic) value. To wrap the Libyan intervention in the concept of humanitarianism cheapens humanitarianism. (But then it wouldn't be the first time, would it?)
Yes, it may the case that in Libya our values and our strategic interests intersect, although this kind of intervention so rarely works out well even without all the complications that it's hard to see what the end game will be. But it is equally true that in Bahrain, our values and our strategic interests don't intersect. Guess which one wins?
Update: And it should not be overlooked that this is happening in the middle of a huge push to cut back on basic services for American citizens reeling from the economic meltdown. It's been hard enough for the Democrats to make a coherent argument after having extended tax cuts for millionaires, but I'm guessing it's going to be even harder now.
Update II:Here's an article on the major oil company holdings in Libya. I don't know if it includes the various Libyan subsidiaries. For instance France Total reformed itself into a company named Al-Mabrouk Oil. It's possible that these are all included, however.
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