As troops loyal to Col. Muammar Gaddafi continue to pound the rebel-held city of Misratah — leading to hundreds of civilian casualties — British Foreign Secretary William Hague announced April 19 that the U.K. and France were dispatching a joint squad of military advisers to Benghazi, stronghold of the Libyan rebels in the …
NATO
NATO Members Feud While Gaddafi Forces Batter Misratah
It’s increasingly looking like the only factor capable of resolving the international community’s dilemma in Libya is also the one element to that will never cooperate in finding a solution: Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi himself. Because as the meetings, summits, and declarations of coalition partners come and go, it becomes …
Libya After Gaddafi: Why How He Leaves is as Important as When
As I was preparing to leave Tripoli, I had a conversation with an Algerian British journalist who had just been released from detention by Libyan forces for reporting in the east of the country. He was angry that he had been picked up for doing his job, but didn’t let it color his reporting on the situation. As I had been gleaning …
NATO Confronts a Crisis in Libya: Its Air War Has Not Dislodged Gaddafi
The split in NATO over its Libya operation ought to come as no surprise: it’s precisely because of the differences within the alliance over the terms and goals of the mission, and the inevitably limiting effect of the alliance’s consensus-based decisionmaking, that France had been reluctant to cede command to NATO in the first place. But …
Why a Cease-Fire Looms in Libya
“From the very beginning we have been asking that the exit of Gaddafi and his sons take place immediately,” said Mustafa Abdul Jalil, leader of Libya’s rebel National Council on Monday, rejecting an African Union ‘roadmap’ to peace that had supposedly been accepted by Colonel Gaddafi. “We cannot consider this or any future proposal that …
How to Understand the Responsibility to Protect
Since the international community found itself stepping in to try to stem burgeoning humanitarian disasters in Libya and the Ivory Coast, much has been made of the principles behind the interventions. A cadre of liberal internationalists (in Europe, often lapsed socialists) saw in the two countries — particularly in Libya — a mandate …
U.S. Faces a Libya Stalemate, What are its Options?
That which has been obvious for some time now is finally being officially acknowledged: Libya’s power struggle is stalemated, and is likely to remain that way on the basis of the current level of NATO commitment. That was the grim assessment in congressional testimony Thursday by General Carter Ham, the U.S. commander who led the initial …
Sarkozy Goes to War: Is France Back Once More at the Center of World Affairs?
France’s predominant role in international operations like the NATO-led mission over Libya–or this week’s United Nations helicopter strikes in Ivory Coast–have generated a flurry of media reports suggesting formerly Clark Kent-like French diplomats have shed their earlier mild mannered restraint, and have started wading into …
Libya Peace Negotiations Are Already Underway
That Libya’s epic struggle for power has slipped quietly out of the headlines is not surprising, in a media culture with limited attention span and an addiction to tidy (and preferably happy) endings. Libya is looking unlikely to provide either anytime soon: A military stalemate is unlikely to be broken by a rebel force of limited …
Is Gaddafi’s Regime Seeking an Exit Strategy?
If the end game is afoot in the Libya conflict, it has little to do with the provision of armaments, CIA mentoring or air cover to the rebel forces. The counteroffensive by loyalist troops that has driven the rebels all the way back to Ajdabiya, the last town before their Benghazi stronghold, has put paid to hopes of the rebels storming …
‘Arm the Rebels’ Cry Reflects Western Desperation on Libya
Talk by U.S. and British leaders of the possibility of arming Libya’s rebels is a sign of desperation. After all, the amorphous rebellion appears to have little military organization, and Secretary of State Clinton admits that the allies “do not know as much as we would like to” about its makeup. Leaders of the Benghazi-based National …
By Leaving Regime Change to the Libyans, Obama Aligns U.S. and Arab Goals
The U.S. and its allies saved the Libyan rebellion from being crushed by Gaddafi, and will continue to restrain the dictator from rolling back rebel gains. Now, “We will deny the regime arms, cut off its supply of cash, assist the opposition, and work with other nations to hasten the day when Gaddafi leaves power,” President Obama said …
Why NATO May Stop Short of Bombing Gaddafi’s Regime to Smithereens
The question is not whether Libya’s rebels will capture Colonel Gaddafi’s birthplace of Sirte, or storm his citadel in Tripoli; it’s whether NATO will hand them those prizes by escalating its air war with the aim of destroying Gaddafi’s regime. Coalition air strikes have broken the grip of Gaddafi’s forces on the cities of eastern Libya …