War Lords and Radical Groups

Where there are absolutely no meaningful operational groups, no defined alternatives, no secondary governmental structures or permitted political parties, what happens when the entire governmental incumbency is crushed? The February 27^th New York Times: “Colonel Qaddafi spent the last 40 years hollowing out every single institution that might challenge his authority. Unlike neighboring Egypt and Tunisia, Libya lacks the steadying hand of a military to buttress a collapsing government. It has no Parliament, no trade unions, no political parties, no civil society, no nongovernmental agencies. Its only strong ministry is the state oil company. The fact that some experts think the next government might be built atop the oil ministry underscores the paucity of options.” The United States of Chevron?

Clearly, the Oil Ministry has little in common with any semblance of a governing body that has to deal with military and diplomatic policy, fire and police operations, agriculture, the legal system, the control of currency, border enforcement, medical and personal welfare, education… and the list goes on and on. What's worse, the government oil company is hardly able to take care of its own assets: “About 500 foreign nationals were rescued [from a drilling station], leaving Libyan personnel in charge of the valuable oil fields, experts said. Looters are making off with what they can take as local tribal leaders try to assert control over the facilities, which produce 2 per cent of the world's oil supply. ‘There's now no law down there,’ Simon Robinson, who had been in charge of one of the rigs, told The Independent today after he arrived on a Royal Navy frigate from Libya.” AOLNews.com, February 28th.

The military is already breaking up into smaller groups of combatants, fighting amongst themselves. The obvious vulnerability of the entire Libyan society is susceptible to anarchy, resurgent tribal war lords (and there is much regional hatred) or well organized religious political organizations waiting for just such an opportunity… like Sunni-tilted Al Qaeda with Sunni-populated Libya. Libya is a sitting duck, begging for intervention. It’s not as if we don’t already have that form of regional strife in nearby Somali and the Sudan… and Afghanistan is an example that has enmeshed American forces in an unwinnable aggregation of civil wars.

Does the U.N. step in to settle the unrest and provide interim structure? Which U.N. forces would be appropriate? Western troops? Ugh! Wouldn’t go over too well with the locals. Not to mention a serious movement in the West to disengage to avoid the unaffordable costs of war. The League of Arab States? Normally, an obvious choice, but with turmoil at home… and Egypt down for the count… which Arab nations are actually able to dedicate forces and capital to such a campaign? Iran… oh you can bet that there will be Iranian money abetting chaos… but this Shiite nation is not considered a welcome sight in Sunni Libya.

What does exist within Libya? “‘It is going to be a political vacuum,’ said Lisa Anderson, the president of the American University in Cairo and a Libya expert, suggesting that chances are high for a violent period of score-settling. ‘I don’t think it is likely that people will want to put down their weapons and go back to being bureaucrats.’… There is a short list of Libyan institutions, but each has limits. None of the tribes enjo y national reach, and Colonel Qaddafi deliberately set one against the other, dredging up century-old rivalries even in his latest speeches… There are a few respected but elderly members of the original 12-member Revolutionary Command Council who joined Colonel Qaddafi in unseating the king in 1969. Some domestic and exiled intellectuals hope that Libya can resurrect the pluralistic society envisioned by the 1951 Constitution, though without a monarch.” NY Times.

Qaddafi’s Libya was a pariah for decades, contemplating nuclear weapons, giving sanctuary to the “Lockerbie bomber” whose explosives downed a Pan Am flight in 1988, fomenting, sponsoring and financing terrorist groups who blew up and bombed Western targets, even in Europe and Latin America… until the late 90s, after the years of retaliatory international sanctions drained his economy, Qaddafi began to take steps to patch up his horrific reputation… eschewing nuclear weapons, condemning Al Qaeda and generally trying to reopen Libya as a “normal” participant in the global economy. A bit of too little, too late.

For all of us, what happens in Libya has a direct and immediate impact on our entire planet, and most particularly on the “recovery” we all dream of… someday. Libya is an oil producer (notice the rising price at the pump?), and unlike many “Middle Eastern nations in turmoil,” Libya is a short flight over a very small sea to European landfall. It neighbors “very fragile” Egypt with its essential Suez Canal. For chaotic anarchy or Al Qaeda-led rebellion (insert name of other U.S./Israel-hating fundamentalist militants), think of the consequences, the risks, and the potential devastation, genocide and failed hopes and dreams if things veer out of control as they very well might.

I’m Peter Dekom, and just when you think things are getting back on course….