Israel Matzav

While Obama dithers

While the Obama administration dithers over whether to intervene in Libya, Lee Smith sets out some of the stakes that go up with each day on which the US does not intervene.

To understand what is at stake in this war, it is best to see Libya as a large drinking well in the desert fiercely contested by various tribes, but finally brought under the control of a powerful sheikh. Access to the well means life for the sheikh’s allies, and to be denied it means death for his rivals. Because that well is filled not with water but oil, global powers also have a stake in the outcome. The conflict gathering strength in Libya is not over who gets to rule the tribes along the Mediterranean coast and desert interior of a North African country, but who gets to own Libyan oil. It is also about the chances for democracy in the Levant, and whether dictators can massacre their own people at no cost.

Qaddafi’s cash has so far attracted mostly an amateurish brand of mercenaries—impoverished youths from surrounding African states who are effectively little more than human sandbags to be stacked up in defense against the rebels. However, that will change the longer Qaddafi is able to hold on. If it becomes clear that Qaddafi has successfully fortified himself, foreign money will take a position in the conflict. And given the nature of regional actors and Qaddafi’s past relationships with them, it is not difficult to guess who will back the colonel and who will stake the rebels.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sees any hot zone in the Middle East as a potential dumping ground for its homegrown jihadists. In the past, Riyadh dispatched its extremist youth to Afghanistan, Algeria, Bosnia, and Iraq, in the hopes that they would die there. We know what came next. The Saudis would see a war-torn Libya as another opportunity to get rid of their domestic problem. They have no love for Qaddafi, who tried to have King Abdullah assassinated in 2003.

Iran can hardly be expected to ignore a vacuum where it might enhance its regional strategy. A presence in any place offering a border with U.S. allies like Egypt and Tunisia is good for Tehran. The Islamic Republic’s ally Syria would likely come down on Qaddafi’s side as well, especially since Syrian intelligence services built their ties to Qaddafi during an earlier Middle East civil war in Lebanon.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, seems to be learning regional history from scratch. But we know what a civil war in the Middle East looks like. We know how these conflicts drag in their neighbors and destabilize bordering states. We know the humanitarian cost and the cost to American interests. We know what happens in the aftermath. American soldiers are in Afghanistan to prevent that country from becoming a failed state and terrorist haven. A civil war in Libya promises to create a dynamic potentially many times worse. Are we really going to forgo the opportunity to influence the outcome in America’s favor?

Apparently, the answer to that question is yes. The US is going to forgo the opportunity, because the Obama administration will not intervene.

While the strategy of trying to reach compromises with existing regimes makes sense in countries that are ruled by allies, it makes less sense in countries like Libya that are not and have never been allied with the West. The same goes for Iran and for a Hezbullah-led Lebanon.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Barack Obama, Libyan regime change

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:29 AM