Operation Odyssey Dawn must not become an “odyssey”
A smart line has been circulating recently on the web: “Nuclear Cloud, Rise of the National Front in France, the US bombing Libya: welcome to 1986. We’re back to the future”. It is true that historical analogies make it tempting to look for past situations in order to resolve current crises.
With Libya in particular, the fear of remaining passive while a dictatorial regime commits crimes against its population has clearly motivated UN resolution 1973 authorising Operation Odyssey Dawn.
On paper it looks like a pretty straight forward scenario: an antipathetic autocrat everyone wants to hate, a rebellion led by a ’National Transitional Council’ claiming to follow the democratic wave spreading across the Arab world, and the enforcement of a no-fly zone supported by the Security Council resolution, marking a stark difference with the unilateral US intervention in Iraq.
Yet the clear sentiment that motivated the coalition led by the US just a few weeks ago seems to dissolve. The operation looks increasingly problematic for two reasons. Firstly, Obama looks in a hurry to get rid of the hot potato by handing-over control of combat operations to a NATO command structure. Secondly participating countries are unable to be coherent and explicit on the objective they are pursuing.
Without wanting to fall into dubious puns, the “operation” is turning into far more of an “odyssey” than it was perhaps intended to be. Why is that?
It’s slightly more complicated…
Things are no that simple any more
The governments involved in the operation are facing the ambiguity that has replaced the manichean world order of the Cold War mentioned in the opening line.
Back then, diplomacy seemed simple and fairly black and white to mainstream audiences (1). The good guys looked easy to recognise, and siding with them seemed pretty straight forward. It was Top Gun and Rambo against the villains. The Mujahideen in the mountains of Afghanistan fighting Russian invaders: good guys. Yugoslav autocrat taming Croat, Bosnian and Kosovan aspiration for freedom: bad guy. Libyan dictator helping terrorists: bad guy.
The trouble for the US and European collation is that the forces that used to rally their constituents against a common soviet enemy 20 years ago have dissolved. Wanting to ‘champion democracy’ is simply not enough anymore to unite a western front, because we don’t even agree on what this democracy is about. Activists see the ability to protest, whereas governments see the right to enforce the status-quo and stability enabling free market economies to ‘flourish’.
Marked by those unresolved contradictions, the US and their European partners have not been able to articulate a coherent line about the Arab revolutions, let alone Libya.
Furthermore the reason they have not been able to do so is that in fact those revolutions go against the positions the West has been presenting to the Arabs for the past 30 years. It is therefore not surprising western leaders find it hard to rewrite a rushed narrative within a couple of months.
Efforts to back flip on the dictators cannot erase years of flirting with them. All of this is subliminally resurfacing in the present military endeavour.
The trouble with Operation Odyssey Dawn is that it is back to the Future, but in a bad way
The trouble is that Operation Odyssey Dawn could derail from the initial intend to strictly enforce UN resolution 1973 which is “demanding an immediate ceasefire in Libya, including an end to the current attacks against civilians, which it said might constitute “crimes against humanity””
The situation on the ground seems to have evolved since the first calls to intervene were made. The popular street uprising looks like it has been replaced by a military insurgency led by former officials of the regime. It might well be that despite having served Gaddafi for decades, they suddenly have genuine democratic aspirations. But we don’t really know.
So speaking of past historical example, a genuine question to ask is whether the coalition is repeating what happened in the 1980s, for example when America backed the Afghan Mujahideen or when Israel supported the Christian Lebanese Phalangists. Surely those situations are different in their own right, but a common pattern is the way the West tries to pick winners. And the way those types of interventions back fired is now history: parts of the Mujahideen turned into Talibans, and the Phalangists perpetrated the Sabra and Shatila massacre.
The point is that there is a fundamental difference between enforcing a UN resolution on humanitarian grounds, and picking a side in conflict. It doesn’t mean we can’t do it, but we need to be very clear and open about it. Because this is the way things now look like in Libya. Instead of supporting people on barricades as initially planned, it looks like we are intervening in a civil war where former military officers and tribal leaders are trying to win a Coup d’Etat against Gaddafi.
There is no denial that admitting this reality can be a painful process for enthusiastic pro-democrats. Celebrity-activists like Bernard-Henri Lévy or former French Doctor Bernard Kouchner passionately lobbied for this intervention and used their personal experiences in Bosnia and Kosovo to articulate the case. [watch: BHL on English AlJazeera] (No matter how tainted their personalities are because of their constant search for personal glory through humanitarian causes, they presented a genuine case to be debated ). However learning those lessons from the past also importantly means that everyone in the Western camp need to clearly realise what they are getting into, and be prepared for the worse scenario of getting stuck and starting a long “odyssey” (2).
{ leLaissezFaire }
(1) Of course this is a slight simplification: even in the 1980s there were articulate and sophisticated critics such as Noam Chomsky etal. However they tended to be on the fringe of high political awareness; mainstream western opinion was much more aligned with governments foreign policies.
(2) Watch: BHL on English AlJazeera
(3) “I hope it’s not a ten year odyssey” pointed out @maxzeledon … Indeed, witty commentators have been quick to wish it does not take as look as Homer’s tale.
Bernard-Henri Lévy arguing for the French intervention live from Benghazi
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