Libya Needs Serious Diplomatic Efforts, Not Military Intervention

Abdel Bari Atwan writes: It has now become imperative to find a suitable exit for Gaddafi and ensure a peaceful transition of power
This commentary was published in The Gulf News on 24/04/2011 

As the well-polished shoes of several dozen British and French plain-clothes ‘military advisers' hit the ground in Libya, it may not be long before they are joined by the boots of uniformed ground troops. As many commentators have pointed out, the arrival of US ‘special military representatives' in Vietnam in 1961 preceded an eventual invasion by half a million American soldiers.

Nor would it be the first time that Britain and France have been so closely involved in the fortunes of Libya. From 1943-1951, the administration of the former Italian colony was divided between the two countries, with the US establishing a significant military base near Tripoli (from where its specialists continued the research into Libya's suspected vast oil reserves initiated by the Italians in the 1930s).

We are assured that the imminent dispatch of 600 marines and UK war ships to Cyprus is ‘unrelated' to the present crisis in Libya. The deployment of coalition ground troops is not, of course, within the remit of UN Security Council resolution 1973; but then, neither is the regime change resoundingly endorsed by Presidents Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy and Prime Minister David Cameron in an article recently which included this unambiguous statement: ‘Gaddafi must go. And go for good.'

Resolution 1973 allowed for a no-fly zone to protect Libyan citizens and it succeeded in averting the imminent massacre in Benghazi. Now, however, Gaddafi has adapted his military tactics to evade aerial bombardment — by hiding tanks and taking the battle to the heart of the cities for example — and the world can only look on in horror as his forces slaughter the citizens of Misrata.

Whilst considering what steps Nato might take next I remembered a curious tale I heard from a British taxi driver in 1991 during the first Gulf War. His late father, an architect, had been involved in the 1930s construction of King Gazi's Flowers Palace, in Baghdad; the day before I met him, the taxi driver's home had been visited by MI6 agents who were hoping the family had kept some of the architect's plans of the palace. They wanted to pinpoint possible hiding places of Saddam Hussain who had hunkered down in it.

The idea that foreign special forces might assassinate or spirit Colonel Gaddafi away is not as far-fetched as it may sound. Only last week, French agents kidnapped the stubborn ex-president Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast who refused to leave office despite having lost the election. The pointed reference to the International Criminal Court in their Op/Ed may suggest that Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy hope to see an abducted Gaddafi brought before it.

Former Libyan intelligence chief, Mousa Koussa, who defected to the UK on March 30 where he was questioned by British and French intelligence officers, may have provided valuable information about the movements of Colonel Gaddafi and his family. But Gaddafi would certainly prove a difficult target — his Bab Al Azizya compound is a jungle of tunnels and nuclear bunkers. Furthermore it took the US two years to finally hunt down Saddam Hussain, and Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri remain at large 10 years into the ‘war on terror'.

This brings us back to the ‘mission creep' currently gathering pace in Libya. With its no-fly zone and aerial strikes Nato has taken sides in what is, effectively, a civil war, but has failed to help the rebels overthrow Gaddafi or, apparently, weaken his resolve to fight to the bitter end.

Nato motives

The majority of Libyans long to see Gaddafi deposed and expelled from Libya, and for reform, justice and democracy to replace the dictatorship. Some express their desire at public protests and are prepared to die for their cause, others only do so behind closed doors.

Yet the involvement of Nato may, in the long run, hinder the rebels' progress towards freedom, by prolonging and widening the conflict — we have only to look at Iraq to see that such interventions do not provide a ready-fix solution. The uprising's impetus is unquestionably impassioned and noble, but doubts persist about the provenance of some of the rebel leaders and this must concern us. Commander Colonel Khalifa Haftar, for example, has spent the past 20 years in Langley, Virginia, HQ to the CIA which backed and financed his Contra-style militia, the Libyan National Army. Other key figures in the rebellion were, until weeks ago, among the regime's most savage and enthusiastic quashers of dissent.

We must seriously question the Nato countries' motives for involvement too. Can it be a simple co-incidence that Colonel Gaddafi — adept in using oil concessions to play nations off against each other — was courting the Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, Indian China and South Africa) in February and March, offering them lucrative contracts over US and European contenders? This may perhaps have contributed to both the West's sudden realisation that Gaddafi is a brutal tyrant and the coy refusal of the Brics nations to support resolution 1973?

And where are the Arab states in all of this? Many are armed and equipped with the latest military hardware — much of it purchased from the US and Britain. The US initially made Arab involvement a pre-requisite for action. Shamefully, the Arab League — having initially endorsed the UN Security Council's resolution — has done and said little since.

Military action should neither have preceded nor replaced the serious and prolonged diplomatic effort which is now imperative to find a suitable exit for Gaddafi and a peaceful transition of power — ideally to a government which will not include any of the colonel's clan or be under the thumb of any western power.

Tens of thousands of Libyans have already died in the present crisis. Let us not forget that every drop of blood spilt in the course of this civil conflict is Arab and Muslim blood and therefore seek a speedy resolution.  

Abdel Bari Atwan is editor of the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi.