After three days of bombing, the UN/NATO/Arab League “coalition” fighting Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi is showing signs of fatigue, frustration, confusion and possible collapse.
It’s not hard to see why. There is broad disagreement over whether Gaddafi is a target, whether his troops can be attacked in a no-fly zone, and whether under UN Resolution 1973 ground troops can be introduced to hasten the regime’s demise and prop up a rebel leadership of which we know very little.
If President Barack Obama wants to reduce the US role in the attacks on Libya, he is on solid ground: it was, after all, Britain and France that pushed for military action. The buck stops in London and Paris, rather than in Washington, this time around.
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Arab League support for the Libyan mission has been lukewarm at best, devious at worst: there are reports that it came at a price, namely a guarantee that the West turn a blind eye to the excesses of other despotic Middle East regimes even as it bombed the Libyan dictator. David Cameron suggested as much when he said Libya was a special case, and Britain had to consider its strategic interests elsewhere. Beyond the West’s present preoccupation with Libya, however, chaos is threatening to engulf the Middle East as a whole, posing further questions for the “international community” that are going to be very hard to answer: Yemen, a hotbed of al-Qaeda activity, is on the verge of civil war, according to the country's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. He was deserted by senior army commanders who now back pro-democracy activists. Saleh’s position was made untenable after the gunning-down of around 50 protesters by his security forces last week. Saleh is seeking reassurances from neighbouring Saudi Arabia (which built a concrete wall along the border as a precaution against terrorist activity spilling over) that he can join ousted Tunisian president Zine al-Abidinej Ben Ali in exile in Riyadh. Like Gaddafi, Saleh’s time seems to be up, but whither Yemen after his departure? Saleh has been, to all intents and purposes, “our man” in Sanaa. Will we find “another man”? Saudi Arabia’s troops still occupy Bahrain in a misguided attempt to prop up the beleaguered Khalifa royal family who face their own uprising. If the occupation of Bahrain by the most powerful dictatorship in the region was carried out with Western acquiescence, then it will have weakened the West’s case for attacks on Libya. Western double standards in the region, even without the question of Palestinian statehood (which may not weigh as heavily on the minds of the Arab man in the street as one might think – “It’s the economy, stupid”), are grist to the mill for terrorists in their propaganda war against the West. Though he recently claimed to be “out of this” in the sense that “we are not Tunisians and we are not Egyptians”, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad is facing his own uprising in Deraa and Jassem. Opposition leaders say Syrians are sick of government corruption and abuses by security forces. Assad is not as bloody a dictator as his father, Hafez, who killed 30,000 in crushing a Muslim Brotherhood uprising in 1983, but there are fears of an Islamic backlash if the Baathist regime falls, and this would have implications for Israel. There is deep concern over the Arab democratic revolutions in Israel, which has long boasted that it is the only true democracy in the region. Now it seems to have lapsed into a “better the devil you know” stance. The prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, claims Israel is taking the “realistic” view, because he fears “new Irans”, rather than Western-style democracies, might emerge from the Arab uprisings. Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, a former prime minister and “dove” turned “hawk”, suggested in an interview with the BBC that Israel might at last move on the Palestinian question, but only in return for £30 billion in additional military aid. This would suggest Israel sees itself as closer to a new war with its Arab neighbours, rather than taking heart from the pro-democracy movements across the Arab world. Egyptians have approved constitutional amendments by a wide majority. These include the limiting of presidential terms from six years to four years and to two terms only. However, there are signs of a split in the pro-democracy movement as some want to get it right, fearing the changes do not go far enough and that elections, which could be held as early as September, will come too soon for political parties to prepare adequately. President Obama says the Arab world should take its inspiration from Latin America, which in the 1980s and 1990s emerged from years of military dictatorships with relatively healthy democracies. There are differences, however, that Obama failed to mention: many countries in Latin America had a long-standing history of democratic institutions that survived the ravages of dictatorship, while democracy is a new concept in the Middle East. A rocky road lies ahead, though it will be one worth travelling. It is clear that millions of Arabs simply want a better life. Unfortunately, they are still at the mercy of the powers that be, even after the departure of their immediate exploiters. Geopolitics is a devious game, and few play by the rules. Russia appears to be hedging its bets, while refusing to play the role of bystander. Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, condemned the Western attacks on Libya as another “mediaeval call to crusade”, though he must know religion has nothing to do with it – the Libyan conflict is a civil war. Putin has been slapped down by President Dmitry Medvedev for his comments, but everyone knows who calls the shots in Russia. Medvedev says such talk might bring about a “clash of civilisations”, but one wonders if that is what Moscow, which has its own problems with Islamic terrorism, would really like to see. Worries about Russian intentions are the last thing Barack Obama, David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy need now, but it may be something they will increasingly have to deal with in the future, when and if some semblance of order is restored to the Arab world.Donate to us: support independent, intelligent, in-depth Scottish journalism from just 3p a day
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