If you arm them, they will fight: Rebels firing rockets at Khadafy’s forces yesterday a dozen miles outside the strategic city of Brega. (AFP/Getty Images)
Despite the stalemate set tling around the strategic city of Brega, Libyan opposition forces plan to open a front in the west of the country to isolate the capital, Tripoli, which Col. Moammar Khadafy still controls.
A western front would cut off Khadafy from his tribal stronghold and from the routes by which African mercenaries join his forces. But to open it, the opposition needs arms, materiel and intelligence that it can’t easily secure now.
With NATO assuming command of operations in Libya, the opposition hopes for a more realistic approach from the major Western powers.
“We need help and we need time,” says Maj.-Gen. Suleiman Mahmoud, who broke with Khadafy and now commands opposition forces in eastern Libya. “We don’t need foreign boots on the ground because we have enough fighters. But we need heavy weapons to match those controlled by Khadafy.
“We can beat him in a fair fight. The world should give us a chance to do so.”
Meanwhile, the terrorist groups collectively known as Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, operating in 10 states in northern and western Africa, are trying to secure a foothold in Libya by promising to smuggle arms to the rebels.
Islamist armed groups fought Khadafy in the mountainous Jabal Akhdar region for years. In recent days, they’ve come out of hiding and secured a presence in eastern Libya.
In desperation, anti-Khadafy forces might turn to AQIM for weapons to protect them against the colonel’s war machine.
Thus, the Western democracies can’t ignore the issue of arming the freedom fighters — though the coalition now seems divided on how much to support the anti-Khadafy forces.
France and Britain appear to favor providing some arms to the opposition. British Prime Minister David Cameron has asked his attorney general to supply an opinion on the legality of such a move, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy has hinted that he is prepared to go it alone, if necessary.
The Obama administration, however, seems of two minds. It realizes that, without support for the opposition, Libya may be heading for a prolonged war and morph into a failed state — thus becoming a haven for terrorism on the Mediterranean. Yet some in the administration worry that involvement in a war in an Arab country might undermine President Obama’s credentials as “the anti-Bush.”
Opponents of helping the Libyan freedom fighters cite Russia’s statement on Tuesday that arming the rebels would contravene the UN Security Council resolution that allowed the coalition’s intervention. But the Russian statement is legally worthless. Russia abstained on the resolution, and thus has no right to interpret it, which it could have done had it voted for or against.
It’s also politically worthless, because Moscow won’t do anything to counter such a move. It can’t ship arms to Khadafy in violation of the UN-imposed ban, and wouldn’t be stupid enough to try to physically block the supply of materiel to Libyan opposition forces.
American ambiguity over Libya can only prolong the conflict — which is in no one’s interest. A long conflict would only mean more death and devastation and could provoke a refugee crisis that could affect the fragile new regimes in Tunisia and Egypt.
By contrast, a clear US position on the war over Libya’s future would be a major moral booster for the opposition. It would also encourage more of Khadafy’s shrinking entourage to abandon him — as Foreign Minister Mousa Kousa just did, arriving in London to demand political asylum. (I reported that Kousa was planning to defect in the March 19 Post.)
Kousa is the fifth member of the Khadafy Cabinet to defect — and the most important. A cousin of the colonel, he led the regime’s intelligence service for years and negotiated the ending of Libya’s nuclear and chemical-weapons programs with Condoleezza Rice.
Libyan sources tell me that Kousa’s move heralds further defections within the Khadafy clan: Khadafy’s daughter Ayesha has already fled to Vienna and may soon appear in public to denounce her father’s dictatorship.