The collapse of the Jamahiriya
 Ziad Akl Moussa

On June 15, the uprising in Libya completed its fourth month. Some 120 days have passed since the people of Libya decided to express their political will in a mass movement demanding regime change. Throughout these past four months, Libya has set a unique example, an alternative model of conflict not witnessed in any other Arab country, despite some similarities to the Yemeni and Syrian models.

But along with the escalation of events Libya has witnessed, from peaceful protesting to violent confrontation ending in international military action, Libya's future remains uncertain. Of course, concrete facts on the ground have emerged throughout the course of the conflict: the National Transitional Council in Benghazi, the new social movements comprised mostly of youth like "Change in Libya", and the amplified activism of the Libyan diaspora in the West all offer indications of what a post-war Libya would look like. However, most future scenarios still depend on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's strategy, and this is shaped by a mindset that in many instances lacks rationality.

While strategically sensible, the western intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 is confused in many respects. In particular, the western nations seem poorly aware or convinced of the intervention's rationale; they oscillate between agreement and disagreement, so that the most relevant problem is that political leadership is conspicuously lacking. Legal limitations on military action, coupled with political ineffectiveness, may lead to another inconclusive intervention and/or to solutions that would only open the door to further conflict. To hope to get out of the crisis, more effective diplomacy is badly needed.

If one looks back at the events that led to the intervention, it is clear that decisions at the outset were made less on the basis of clear-cut political and strategic objectives than on impulse. Thus, Bernard Henri-Levy reported gross human right abuses to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who suddenly decided to intervene with one eye to justice and another on the polls. And US President Barack Obama was understandably moved by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's threat to search Benghazi house-by-house and crush the opposition like rats. Only after the intervention were there efforts to make realities and objectives match, definitely a second-best method.

In particular, several allies insisted on shifting from the coalition of the willing that was jumpstarted by the French and British, to NATO. Italy promoted that shift very actively (in the dual context of a rift with Paris over migrants arriving in Italy from Tunisia being stopped from crossing to France, their true destination, and of resentment over a French attempt to take over, allegedly unfairly, an important Italian industrial dairy group). The step, however, was supported by other Europeans and even by Washington, so that the operation to implement Resolution 1973 was indeed transferred to NATO.

This move, in turn, took for granted the unity of strategic and political intent within the Atlantic Alliance, which soon proved to be very weak indeed, if not non-existent. Today, it is evident that NATO's military arm has no effective political head and that, as in all the inconclusive wars launched in the 2024s, the head is saying that the intervention is not working because of military ineffectiveness and the arm is responding that the problem is the other way round. By the same token--a well-known recipe for defeat--while the Europeans are saying that the Americans are not helping, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently brusquely rebuked the Europeans for not contributing the necessary forces.

Even if it might be too late, let's try to make sense of Libya. There are two valid strategic rationales for the intervention: (a) the future of North Africa in the context of the ongoing Arab ferment (so close in strengths and weaknesses to European national/democratic ferment in the nineteenth century); and (b) the unique opportunity for a western-Arab rapprochement offered by the specific context of Libya's strategic predicament.

As for the future of North Africa, a democratic Libya would certainly be of great help to Tunisia. A democratic Tunisian-Libyan duo would have considerable influence on the rest of the Maghreb and North Africa. It would isolate the stolid and mummified Algerian military regime, compel the Moroccan monarchy to adopt a firmer and less tortuous path to constitutionality, and probably help Egypt's emerging regime to become less neo-nationalist and more democratic (while what the Supreme Military Council in Egypt is doing suggests the reverse, not unlike what happened in Germany at the conclusion of the 1848 uprising). In the changing context of North Africa, a country like Libya that has been so marginal in the Arab political arena may ironically play a pivotal role in fostering change that is no less in the interests of the West than of the Arabs.

On the other hand, in Libya (like Kuwait in 1990-91) direct western intervention is possible in the wider framework of change initiated by the Arabs themselves. Elsewhere, such intervention might not be feasible without the risk of stirring up a region-wide conflict. In Libya, western military intervention is neither blocked nor constrained by security factors or strategic difficulties, as in Syria at present or in Bahrain earlier. Apart from Africa south of the Sahara, Libya has no regional strategic bonds or friends; it has repudiated and insulted the Arab League and kept aloof from Euro-Mediterranean political dealings. In sum, while the intervention appears useful and feasible, it does not risk prejudicing western-Arab relations. Quite the contrary, it looks like an opportunity for cooperating, if not coalescing.

Libya makes sense, in principle. However, for that sense to materialize, the western countries should try to recover a minimum of strategic cohesion. President Obama should understand that intervening in Libya--according to the arguments developed above--is in tune with, not in opposition to, his priority of winning over Arab hearts so that old and new differences can be surmounted. On the other hand, the Europeans should also understand that if Libya is pivotal in fostering change in North Africa, this development is in their primary interest, as it will provide substance to their dying Mediterranean policy. Both should understand that if North Africa consolidates as the first democratic platform in the Arab world, this would immensely help the women and men now struggling for freedom in the Levant and the Gulf, where conditions are more impervious to change and where they will have to experience a number of defeats before succeeding in establishing democracy.

Assuming the western/Libyan coalition manages to achieve strategic cohesion, the NATO allies need to work out a sensible political roadmap for concluding the conflict and establishing a viable new political regime. In fact, on this point there is convergence regarding the encouragement that British Foreign Secretary William Hague recently gave the Revolutionary Council in Benghazi, to begin thinking and implementing plans for the post-civil war situation. Very aptly, Hague warned the council to avoid the mistake made in post-Saddam Iraq by Americans and Shiites, of de-baathification-style radical regime cleansing. In other words, the new Libyan leaders should prepare for a national reconciliation of sorts without waiting for Gaddafi's personal fall and, on the contrary, accelerate both by trying to negotiate with his present supporters.

No solution is indeed possible--not even that suggested by Hague--unless Gaddafi exits. International diplomacy, from African leaders including South African President Jacob Zuma in person to Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan, has already tried repeatedly and fruitlessly to convince Gaddafi to give up. Gaddafi does not agree to be excluded from a solution and Benghazi does not agree that he stay. Admittedly, the question of Gaddafi's departure has been somehow neglected by the western countries, or even sidelined. It is probably high time to act in this direction, but this task involves western diplomacy rather than NATO and requires, to be honest, more political cohesion in the alliance than that available at present.-Published 16/6/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Roberto Aliboni is director of the Mediterranean and Middle East Programme, International Affairs Institute-IAI, Rome and senior research adviser, European Institute of the Mediterranean-IEMed, Barcelona.

The Libya intervention is important for three reasons. First and foremost, its potential consequences for the people of Libya give urgency to the current stalemate. Second, the intervention may have profound implications for the "Arab spring" in the rest of the region. Finally, the intervention is important because of the precedent that has been set in the international system. Whatever the ultimate outcome of the intervention on the first two scores, from this third perspective, the precedent set by the United Nations Security Council's authorization of a military intervention in Libya is already evident.

From an international law perspective, the Libyan intervention is unprecedented. While it is true that the Security Council (UNSC) had previously authorized the use of "all necessary means" to provide security in the delivery of humanitarian relief supplies in Somalia and to create a safe haven in Srebrenica, these authorizations were for activities to which the relevant governing authorities had consented. Both the Bosnian government and the nominal government in Somalia were seeking the assistance of the United Nations in those instances. Thus, the interventions in those cases were more akin to peacekeeping than a stand-alone authorization of coercive humanitarianism. Libya represents the first time that the UNSC, acting solely on its Chapter VII powers, has authorized the use of "all necessary measures" to protect the humanitarian welfare of a civilian population. In other words, this is the first Security Council-authorized humanitarian (military) intervention.

Under the UN Charter, the UNSC may authorize the use of force in response to a threat to international peace and security. But the Council did not find such a threat in the Libyan case. Rather, in Resolution 1973, the UNSC obliquely referenced the relatively novel doctrine of "responsibility to protect" as the basis for its authorization, by invoking the failure of Libyan authorities to effectuate their responsibility to protect the Libyan population. Despite this reference, however, the course of UNSC action in Libya has run roughshod over the precautionary principles embedded in the doctrine of responsibility-to-protect.

The responsibility to protect entails, first and foremost, a responsibility in the international community to take peaceful measures to prevent harm to civilians. The principal tools by which this responsibility is to be fulfilled are such diplomatic measures as capacity-building, mediation and negotiation. Only should all diplomatic efforts fail may coercive means be contemplated. And should coercion be necessary, coercive measures are to be minimized, imposed incrementally and given an opportunity to have an effect.

In the case of Libya, coercive measures were the first rather than the last option employed by the Council. The first protests in Libya began on February 15, 2024. The Gaddafi regime responded with violence within the first few days, much as had been the case in Egypt, Bahrain and Yemen. Unlike those cases, however, the UNSC moved precipitously to address the Libyan situation. Within one week of the first protests, on February 22, 2024, the UNSC issued a press statement expressing its concern. Within four days of that statement, the Council adopted its first package of coercive measures in Resolution 1970--an asset freeze, arms embargo, travel ban and referral of the regime to the International Criminal Court--without attempting any diplomatic overture to the Libyan authorities. Further, by threatening the regime with criminal indictment, this first concrete action by the UNSC seemed likelier to foreclose than encourage a negotiated solution to the crisis. Less than three weeks after that sanctions package was passed, the UNSC passed Resolution 1973 with an open-ended authorization to use force.

The UNSC authorized "all necessary measures" short of an "occupation force" to "protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack." While the resolution specifically references a "no fly zone", the breadth of the authorization far exceeds that tactic to include authorization to engage in aerial attack against ground forces should they be deemed a threat to civilian populations (dubbed by some a "no drive zone") and indeed to deploy ground troops for any purpose other than as an "occupation force". On what basis had the UNSC concluded that such open-ended authorization of force would accomplish the purpose of protecting civilians or facilitate political transition in Libya?

Three months after the passage of Resolution 1973 there remains no clear strategy that can be accomplished on the basis of the tactic authorized by the Council and pursued by NATO. With no vital strategic interests at stake, the principal countries participating in the NATO mission will not use the force necessary to decisively end the conflict. Rather they rely on airstrikes with little prospect of accomplishing even the minimum goal of protecting civilians. Indeed, the choice of aerial bombardment enables NATO to engage in a military attack while minimizing risk to its own forces, a tactic that has the predictable effect of prolonging rather than terminating the conflict.

Since the NATO intervention began, the toll on the civilian population has steadily increased. As the tactic of aerial bombardment failed to achieve immediate results, NATO's definition of its mission expanded, exceeding anything authorized by the UNSC. First, NATO began attacking not only regime forces threatening civilian populations, but also Libyan troops in retreat. Next, they targeted Libyan forces wherever they may be, even when not involved in any threat to civilians, but stationed far from conflict in the western provinces. As these tactics failed to decisively alter the military balance, NATO resorted to increased airstrikes in Tripoli. These attacks soon took on the appearance of assassination attempts, including strikes that resulted in the death of Qaddafi's grandchildren while sleeping in their residence.

NATO's mission creep is a consequence of the mismatch between the tactic of airstrikes and the increasingly apparent strategic goal of regime change. With western and Arab governments pledging this month in Abu Dhabi over a billion dollars to finance and arm the rebel forces, and the British and French reportedly sending military advisors to assist the rebels on the ground, further escalation seems likely. The cost of the prolonged military stalemate can best be measured in civilian casualties. An intervention initially justified to avert an anticipated "bloodbath" in Benghazi--then the last refuge held by largely-defeated rebel forces--has given way to mounting civilian casualties in Misrata, Ajdabiya, Zawiya and elsewhere. Rather than protecting the welfare of the civilian population, the intervention as it stands has served to push the frontline of fighting to less well-defended cities, with greater civilian casualties each time the balance between rebels and regime forces in these cities seesaws back and forth.

What then is the end game? The political leaders of countries most involved in the NATO intervention have made clear that "Qaddafi must go." The precedent of invoking human rights and humanitarianism for regime-change by military intervention, with the blessing of the UN, will have wide-ranging implications for the legal regime governing international peace and security. In the meantime, the intervention has escalated, and perhaps prolonged, a brutal civil war. For the defenders of the intervention, success might look much like the "victory" in Kosovo. But if the Libyan intervention results in an outcome comparable to that in Kosovo, it may well mean the partition of the country and the creation of a nominally autonomous province (or set of eastern provinces) that will ultimately be a NATO protectorate. If that is what "victory" would look like, what are the less appealing alternatives? An extremely unhappy, and increasingly plausible, scenario would be a "victory" more akin to Iraq than Kosovo, namely a protracted civil war that results in the destruction of Libya's infrastructure and unleashes a set of atrocities that fuel another generation of conflict.-Published 16/6/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org


Asli Bali teaches international law at the UCLA School of Law.

It was February 15, exactly a week after my graduation project presentation. I was again giving my cousin, who lives in Egypt and was here on a visit, reasons why a revolution like the one that had succeeded in Egypt would probably not happen here in Libya. February 17 was the date chosen for the Libyan revolution by activists on Facebook and the closer we got to that Thursday, the more people talked about whether anything would really happen. How little did I realize that my analysis was completely wrong; minutes after a delicious Libyan dinner, we heard that protests had broken out in our city, Benghazi. Little did I know that a new era for Libya was about to start on that ordinary winter night. The revolution had begun two days early and no one could expect what was to come.

Less than a week into the revolution, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi--who had controlled Libya with an iron fist for more than four decades--had lost control over most of the country. At that point, we had no doubt that it was a just a matter of time before we became the next Arab country to bring down its dictator. Again we were wrong.

Citizens in the liberated areas were able to get ahold of weapons from bases evacuated by the regime. The special forces joined the people against the dictator; they were all that was really left of our national army, which Gaddafi had deliberately weakened and replaced with his loyal special brigades. Knowing Gaddafi's brutality and insanity, people were ready to pick up arms to defend the liberated cities from any military response, but nobody thought that days would turn into weeks and weeks would turn into months.

After almost four months, the nights are no longer cold as they were in that mid-February week. It's June now, summer is here, and Gaddafi has shown no real intention of leaving power. He has forced a peaceful revolution to become a liberation war. For Libyans, the choice of no return was made a long time ago, but we have had to pay a very high price for freedom just like our grandfathers had to do when they fought fascist Italian colonizers. I keep telling my friends that glory is written for us Libyans, that we always have to pay in a great deal of blood and lives to earn our liberty, despite our small population. We have it in us, however, to be a great example of courage and stand up to extreme tyranny.

During the four months of the revolution, Libyans embraced an extreme sense of patriotism and national spirit that they had missed under the dictatorship. Most people are discovering how they can serve their country in these unique historic times. Many have chosen the battlefield.

On all the main fronts in Libya, you find people from all sectors of Libyan society joining the fight for freedom. University students, doctors, craftsmen, engineers, truck drivers, the unemployed and pretty much any career background you can think of are all there for one cause: to bring down the regime that has prevented their country from living up to its true potential, the regime that murdered many of their family members and friends in the past or more recently, or just because they oppose Gaddafi. Their strong belief in their cause, in the right to live freely, and in God keeps them going. Their motto is that of the historic Libyan revolutionary Omar Mukhtar: "We don't surrender--we win or we die." Their belief that they will gain either victory and freedom or God's eternal paradise gives them enough peace and strength to continue.

As one Norwegian journalist put it, there are few battles in one's life where a fight is so clear; to fight a known evil that's harming your country is probably the clearest. When I decided to go to a training center to join the front, I was surprised to find most of my closest friends volunteering that same day. We joked about how we were all guilty of not telling each other. Still, the front is changing. Some have decided to go home, back to their normal lives, or to serve the cause in other ways. Others, like me and my colleague who were working with media and as activists in the new civil society, have newly joined.

I was in Misrata last week and a group of us were sitting on the ground, joking about Gaddafi's latest audio message and his ridiculous promises of reform and gifts of money and cars if we surrendered. One field commander's voice suddenly turned serious. "The idiot," he said, "does he really think we gave away all those men for cars?" Simple statements like that remind you how serious everyone is and that the lives of more than 10,000 martyrs and 30,000 injured cannot have been sacrificed for nothing.

Although none of us know how long this will go on, Libyans believe that victory can't be too far away now. God only knows how many more lives or whose lives will have to be sacrificed before this is finally over. What we do know is that after the military fight is finished, the longer fight of building a democracy and a prosperous state will be as important as bringing the dictatorship down. Without a doubt, it will all be worth it when we look back many years from now.-Published 16/6/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org


Murad Fayad is from Benghazi and is now fighting in Misrata.