Libya - What Now?

By Brian Downing

The Money Party March 25, 2011

http://www.themoneyparty.org/main/?p=1514

After weeks of indecision, the NATO powers

and a few Arab states have taken action against
the Kadafi regime and its armed forces. NATO
aircraft and missiles have devastated loyalist
air defenses, troops concentrations, and supply
convoys. Rebel forces have been heartened and
have even made some counteroffensives out of
their enclave in Benghazi. (Image)

NATO resolve is not strong, but an agreement

today (March 24) will likely guarantee that the
air campaign continues. Abandoning it now or
reducing it to a no-fly zone only would be a severe embarrassment to the alliance and
lead to lasting mistrust within it. Furthermore, it might leave Libya in a murderous
stalemate or an unstable partition ever on the brink of renewed war.
In either case, Colonel Kadafi may seek to settle scores with the NATO powers through
terrorism or he could look on in amused triumph as the world tries to patch things up and
get back to the business of buying his oil.

Few in Washington or Paris or London or Brussels will say it openly, but they wish to see
Kadafi removed from office. Continued attacks are likely seeking to bring about his
removal, one way or another. The swiftest method to oust Kadafi would be through
assassination by someone in his security apparatus or through a missile strike. (It is
thought that the latter was attempted a few nights ago when missiles evidently hit his
headquarters, but it’s unlikely anyone would seriously think that Kadafi was in so
obvious a place while Libya was being attacked.)

The skill with which Kadafi’s forces countered the rebellion in the weeks before foreign
intervention suggests that the sons, Saif and Khames, and not the dissociated father are
directing operations. Accordingly, removing the father, but leaving the sons to continue
the fight, might lead to a more adroit loyalist force.

NATO airpower will also seek to wear down loyalist forces and leave the Kadafis with
fewer reliable forces and with more disciplined troops on the rebel side. Protracted
exposure to air strikes will of course lead to greater casualties in the loyalist ranks, but it
will also lead to desertions and refusals to follow orders. Cut off from supply lines, troops
will have to disperse and forage – a situation that armies for centuries have known will
lead to desertion.
Rebel officers and political leaders are likely seeking to open talks with former
colleagues still on the loyalist side. (One report asserts that a significant defection is
being brokered near Ajdabiya with the help of local mullahs.) Without defections from
loyalist forces, it is unlikely that rebel forces will have the trained troops and logistical
skill to launch sustained offensives from their redoubts in a handful of cities and drive on
the loyalist capital of Tripoli.

Rebel officials might point out to their counterparts that much of the world opposes them,
their regime’s days are limited, and that they can play an important role in building a new
Libya. President Mubarak allowed a façade of democracy in Egypt, but Kadafi ruled as
though he were a mythic tribal-king at one with his people, leaving Libya bereft of
political parties, unions, professional associations, and other aspects of civil society.

Inasmuch as western countries are loath to set foot or boot on Libyan ground for fear of
tainting anyone as an ally of neo-imperialism and of being ensnarled in a decade or more
of nation-building, the post-Kadafi country will need a great deal of cooperation from its
political and military groups to build representative government and transform a nation
blessed with natural resources into a potential economic and cultural center for the
region.

© 2011 Brian M Downing

Brian M Downing is the author of several works of political and military history,
including The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War and
Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at
brianmdowning@gmail.com [1].

Reprinted with the permission of the author