The fall of monstrous dictator Moammar Khadafy — a leading facilitator of Middle East terrorism — should be a cause for celebration.
These days, however, the feeling is more one of apprehension. As with Iran four decades ago and Egypt today, it looks as if something even worse is coming for Libya and the rest of us — especially after the way the conflict has been handled.
President Obama’s European friends opened a Pandora’s box of trouble in Libya — and the chaos and bloodshed of the last five months may be just the opening act.
Even though the Libya campaign supposedly was a NATO operation — Obama allowed American planes to take a major part in 7,000 air sorties — the war obviously was an Anglo-French affair from start to finish. Britain and France organized the air strikes, armed and trained rebel forces and facilitated rebel operations with intelligence and logistics — all to make sure Libyan oil kept flowing to Europe. Now, the French even want any post-Khadafy government to start work in Paris, where they can keep an eye on their new clients.
In short, our president largely sat on the sidelines as Britain and France used our jets to get what they wanted — and now, European opinion, starting with the Financial Times, is urging Obama to put American boots on the ground as part of any NATO peace-keeping force.
How ironic: An American president who prides himself on his anti-colonialism — even returning a bust of Winston Churchill to Britain because of how Churchill treated Kenya 60 years ago — has facilitated the biggest neo-colonialist power grab in decades.
Then, too, more assertive US leadership could have wound up this tragedy months ago, at a lower cost in dollars and lives — and America would have had more opportunity to shape the post-Khadafy regime. It will be run by the Libyan National Transitional Council, which was formed back in February but which Obama only recognized as the legitimate government on Sunday.
What are the council’s goals? No one has a clue. The fact that many of its key figures are former Khadafy cronies suggests that it may herald less in the way of democratic reform and more of the same old corruption and money-greased accommodation with Britain and France. Personality conflicts and rivalries among its members also are likely to make any concerted action by the new government difficult, if not impossible.
The real future on the ground, however, depends on what the 140 tribal leaders who are the real rulers of Libya decide to do.
The western tribes, including those around Khadafy’s hometown of Sirte, made that part of Libya a Khadafy stronghold until recently. The eastern tribes, especially around Benghazi, where the revolt began, largely ran the roost under Khadafy’s predecessor, King Idris Senussi. They were shoved into second-class status by Khadafy and his fellow western tribesmen. Whenever the eastern tribes rose in revolt, as they did in 1996, they were massacred without mercy.
Now, they’ll have their opportunity for revenge — and, thanks to Britain and France, the weapons to do it. Despite the calls from the Transitional Council not to seek retribution in the streets of Tripoli, out in the hinterlands too many will think old scores must be settled in blood.
In short, we will have an untried divided central government, set up to do the bidding of foreigners, trying to rule a backward country seething with tribal hatreds — with Libya’s multibillion-dollar oil industry as the prize for anyone ruthless enough, as Khadafy was, to emerge on top. It’s a formula for disaster.
If the United States had taken the lead by recognizing the Transitional Council earlier to help to guide its agenda, or had focused on taking out Khadafy sooner and made it clear from the start that NATO wasn’t going to be subverted into an instrument of European oil interests, some, if not all, of this might have been prevented.
Obama can try to ignore, but he cannot escape, a simple truth: US assertiveness — and not the opposite — is still the key to stability, prosperity and freedom around the world. All through his administration, Obama has showed us how to get that formula wrong — not only in Egypt, Iran and Syria, but now in Libya.
Arthur Herman’s “Gandhi and Churchill” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009.