Democracy in America

American politics

The Libya intervention

Problems from hell, solutions from purgatory

Nov 8th 2011, 15:06 by M.S.

See correction at bottom

MICHAEL BERUBE has a piece up analysing the attitudes of those on the American left who bitterly attacked the Obama administration's participation in the NATO military intervention in Libya. It may seem hardly worth addressing the issue, since the truly anti-interventionist left is a small minority with virtually no access to or influence on the making of American foreign policy. Nevertheless, it is disappointing that a segment of America's left has reacted with such vituperative bile to the US involvement in Libya.

The single most important thing that needs to be said about NATO's intervention in Libya is that it stopped Muammar Qaddafi from carrying out a mass slaughter of civilians who had risen up in protest against his regime. When the UN Security Council authorised a NATO intervention to protect Libyan civilians on March 17th, Mr Qaddafi's elite mechanised units were rolling towards the rebel city of Benghazi, having declared their intention to show "no mercy" towards the rebels, whom the leader himself condemned as "rats, dogs, hypocrites and traitors". The likely fate of those in the city should be clear from the mass graves of earlier dissidents, and from the indiscriminate shelling Mr Qaddafi's troops inflicted on the rebel city of Misrata and eventually on his own city of Sirte, both of which were largely reduced to burnt-out hulks. It is difficult to imagine a stronger case for military intervention to prevent war crimes; the Libyan regime's intent to commit massacres was certainly more clear-cut than the Serbian regime's had been in Kosovo in 1999 before NATO started bombing. It's also worth drawing a contrast with Iraq, where the invasion in 2003 was often justified on the grounds that Saddam Hussein was a war criminal who had conducted genocidal campaigns against the Kurds in 1986-9. Had America and its allies pushed for an intervention to stop that campaign at the time, rather than 15 years later, the case might have been more convincing to the rest of the world.

As I wrote at the time, the intervention in Libya presented a test case for senior administration foreign-policy advisor Samantha Power. Ms Power's Pulitzer prize-winning book "A Problem from Hell" (2003) is the best single examination of American and global responses to genocide, and the central point of the analysis is that the international community has almost never done anything to stop it. America did nothing to stop genocide in Armenia, Germany, the USSR (for obvious reasons), Biafra, Cambodia, Kurdistan, Bosnia or Rwanda; and neither did anyone else. As Ms Power wrote, when NATO began bombing Serbian forces to press Slobodan Milosevic to accept the Kosovo autonomy agreement that had been negotiated at Rambouillet, it was "the first time in history that the United States or its European allies had intervened to head off a potential genocide." A massacre at Benghazi would have been political extermination, not genocide, but I can't think of any cases besides Kosovo where America sent the bombers in to stop one of those, either. By hectoring Mr Obama to join the NATO intervention in Libya, Ms Power helped bring about perhaps the second such intervention. (The Australian intervention in East Timor might be added to the list as well.)

There were plenty of reasons to oppose such an intervention, mainly on the grounds of futility. It was reasonable to argue that the Libyan opposition was too disorganised and too poorly armed and trained to hold out against Mr Qaddafi's forces. A case could be made that tribal affiliations would continue to split the country, and that NATO intervention on one side would only lead to a prolonged civil war. There was a strong claim that air power could not possibly win the war on its own, that NATO troops would ultimately be needed, and that this would either prove politically unacceptable for Europe and America or would provoke patriotic resistance and anger across the Arab and Muslim worlds. Even if these arguments had been correct, they might not have counterbalanced the urgency of preventing a massacre at Benghazi. But the most salient point about all of these arguments is that they turned out to be wrong. The Libyan opposition managed to organise itself sufficiently to bring about the fall of the regime. With the enthusiastic commitment of most of the population, air power turned out to be enough to tip the balance. NATO succeeded in helping a popular revolution against the dictatorial Qaddafi regime succeed, and in helping sustain the momentum of the Arab Spring, all without the loss of a single Western soldier's life.

I think there are some lessons to be learned from this intervention that have broad but not unlimited application to other possible interventions. One is the importance of international legitimacy and a true multilateral coalition. Mr Obama was criticised by many conservatives for "leading from behind" in the Libya intervention, allowing Britain and France to take the lead; but that was always one of the policy's greatest strengths. In contrast to the invasion of Iraq, it was clear from the beginning that the NATO intervention in Libya was driven by the broad commitment of Western governments and their publics to aiding democratic transitions and stopping murderous repression. It was even more important that the intervention was backed by the Arab League. Again, the assent of neighbouring governments, whether due to popular feeling or to antipathy to Qaddafi, was a crucial factor and a key difference with unsuccessful interventions elsewhere. And the proximity of Libya to Europe meant that this conflict was within the zone of genuine strategic interest for NATO, which enhanced the credibility of the alliance's commitment. (Unlike, say, Afghanistan.) It may not always be a good idea to send the jets in to stop a massacre, but when these conditions are present, it becomes a much better idea.

All in all, the Libya intervention has been a messy, grueling, modest success. Which is exactly what can be expected from interventions to stop impending war crimes. Countries where people are about to be slaughtered en masse generally tend to have some very serious problems that aren't going to be wrapped up with a short military campaign. Over a decade later, Bosnia and Kosovo are still essentially wards of NATO and the UN. East Timor is a bit of a basket case. Libya will likely continue to be a convoluted, intermittently violent mess for quite some time. But if we are ever going to use international military power to stop genocide and war crimes, this is the sort of thing we have to be prepared for.

Every political tendency has its worst side, but at its worst, the left generally remains internationalist. Classically, in the Vietnam-war era, say, the risk would be that the left's fringe would end up attacking American policy in alliance with unsavoury international players like Fidel Castro or, well, Muammar Qaddafi. In the case of progressive anger at the Libya intervention, there don't even seem to be any international players they're allying with. Some folks on the far left have decided to express their infuriated disappointment with the Obama administration by attacking the intervention in Libya, in concert with...basically nobody. As Mr Berube writes of the older members of this group, they are "still fighting Vietnam, stranded for decades on a remote ideological island with no way of contacting any contemporary geopolitical reality whatsoever". I'd like to think that the messy success of the Libya campaign may help prevent too many younger people on the left from joining them.

Correction: This post originally referenced a vignette from Mr Berube's piece describing a second-hand report of letters from Dennis Kucinich's office to staff members of Muammar Qaddafi's son, Saif. Mr Kucinich steadfastly denies this report. In a statement from earlier this year, the congressman said:

Al Jazeera found a document written by a Libyan bureaucrat to other Libyan bureaucrats. All it proves is that the Libyans were reading the Washington Post, and read there about my efforts to stop the war. I can't help what the Libyans put in their files. My opposition to the war in Libya, even before it formally started, was public and well known. My questions about the legitimacy of the war, who the opposition was, and what NATO was doing, were also well known and consistent with my official duties. Any implication I was doing anything other than trying to bring an end to an unauthorized war is fiction.

We should've known that and we apologise to Mr Kucinich.

(Photo credit: AFP)

Readers' comments

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Soonersquid

Contrary to popular belief, Bush's "unilateral" war with Iraq had a much broader coalition than the Libyan engagement. See chart at this link, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/fp_uploaded_documents/110325_Libya%20....
The media did an excellent job of misinforming the public of the facts surrounding that war. Agree with our intent or not, George Bush did more work to establish international legitimacy for the Iraqi invasion than Obama ever attempted.

chubasco

Wow, M.S., is W.W. making you feel too liberal? You sound a tad defensive. (For the record you both usually talk sense imho)

I had several pages of bile to cough up in response to one of the most offensive tirades (first and last paragraphs above) I've seen in the Economist for awhile, but let me just be polite-ish, and sum it up thusly:

I'm sure neither Jesus or Ghandi would have been in support of intervention, or whatever they are calling it now, in Libya, *regardless* of how well it turned out. My position isn't called 'extreme left', it's called p.a.c.i.f.i.s.m. look it up. Lump us in with with the tinfoil hat people if you like, I doubt it's going to substantially change either of our positions. And yes, I'm sure there are those who call themselves pacifists that would still have been in support - morality is a spectrum after all - but trivializing those who do not is morally questionable itself. If, in your quest for a safe, mainstream, liberal base you were simply criticizing the specific article you mention, I'm afraid your rhetoric has ran away with itself. I'll be missing your column for awhile until I get over it...

Fifth Horseman

I'd bet a hundred euros against whatever is left of The Economist's journalistic ethics that if a body count of civilians who have died of American bombs, bullets, artillery rounds and missiles in the last ten years were ever tallied versus those killed by all the Arab dictators in the Middle East that America's tally would dwarf those killed by the despots it's targeting.

Fifth Horseman

I for one have trouble believing that the country which perpetrated Operation Phantom Fury and provided the money, munitions and moral support for Operation Cast Lead -- not to mention bearing responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Operation Iraqi Freedom -- actually cared one whit about protecting the lives of Libyan civilians. It's far more likely that the Coalition of Crocodile tears simply saw Libyan intervention as an opportunity to take out another uppity Arab leader while selectively posturing behind humanitarianism.

guest-iwswanl

oh brother. nice propaganda piece. so nice of M.S. to take time to dismiss the inconsequential, sniveling left.
theres a humanitarian genocide happening against black people in libya now brought by those rebel buddies of ours.
http://thenewamerican.com/world-mainmenu-26/africa-mainmenu-27/9005-liby...
because its obama and warmongering at the same time, the democrats and neocons support it. so youre basically arguing on the same side of foxnews, dick cheney, anne coulter, charles krautheimer. yay bipartisanship! just like obama promised!
if the article been honest and said, yeah 'we went in and kicked out the chinese,
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-03/03/c_13759456.htm
when there was no uprising, but our badass cia overthrew gaddafi with only 1000 rebels
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/03/31/libyan-rebels-number-less-than-1000/
because libya has the largest oil reserves in africa and also all the water and it is supplying it to all of north africa and now we control it,
http://www.water-technology.net/projects/gmr/
then at least i wouldve had some respect for M.S. article.

tutcity

Everything noted in this article argues for intervention in Syria, but there's no action whatsoever. Obviously this is not a policy but an adhoc intervention.

Also, the opposition to the action in Libya is not from the "far left." It is from the left, center, right and far right.

MarkB

To those Americans concerned about the War Powers Act - it's been ignored by Congress so often that the "Use it or Lose it" rule can be invoked. Congress - under both parties - has made it clear that it does not see these military actions as falling under the War Powers Act. And given that Congress could have cut off funding for the missions at any time, they just did it again. It is Congress that makes the law. If they ignore it themselves, then it doesn't exist. In other words, there IS NO War Powers Act.

Anderson-2

I remember feeling pretty bilious and vituperative when intervention in Libya was first talked about. WTF we were already fighting two wars and people wanted to add a third? But then France and England stepped up, the Arab League and the UN stepped in, nobody else was complaining, Qadaffi was on the ropes, and suddenly the idea looked a LOT better.

There is something to be said for Obama's War Power's dodge, but the real problem is that it all took longer than anybody really expected, and had Obama gone to Congress, the Republicans would very probably have voted against the intervention, abandoning the rebels, our allies and forcing us to make a humiliating retreat, all to kick Obama in the teeth without regard for any fallout, the reputation of the US abroad, or the merits of what was being done.

Anakha 82 -- 2007 was different in a lot of ways and Iran and Libya are vastly different problems, and given those differences, and in any case, bombing Iran would have been stone cold stupid. Good for Biden, and good for Obama

ozziespan

All this back slapping and congratulatory comments are very good.

Qaddafi's is gone and the regime, supported by many western states over its 42 year existence, is no more. But I have a few questions:

1. Who owns the victory? The west, Arab league or the brave heroic people of Libya?

2. Who will help Libya in its transition from the past to the present and future? Arab league or the west?

3. If the transition 'disappoints' then is the intervention still valid?

4. Why is nothing occurring to stop the slaughter in Syria? Not enough pick-up trucks or too much apathy?

jouris in reply to ozziespan

1) the Libyan people own the victory. They fought and blead for it, and they earned it.
4) geography makes Syria a much harder place to intervene in effectively, especially without boots on the ground. Not to mention that Russia and China are unwilling to sanction a second popular uprising (don't want to get caught encouraging that kind of thinking, lest it come home to roost), although the Arab League is beginning to look like it might actually consider going around again.

Michael Bérubé

You should take down the correction. If you read Kucinich's steadfast denial carefully, you will find, as did Ryan Reilly of Talking Points Memo, that "notably, Kucinich’s statement did not outright deny that he had a conversation with Libyan officials." My point stands. You should have realized that -- so please retract the apology to Kucinich. It is totally unwarranted.

Sincerely,

Michael Berube

Garaboncias

While those two 'Rafales' and the single 'Mirage' in the picture are a nice reference to the initial French efforts, those planes would have had some tough times if the Libyan air defense systems would not have been neutralized (blown to bits) by our cruise missiles (hundreds of them). Since this blog deals with the Left's opposition to Mr.Obama's arbitrary involvement (not seeking Congress' explicit permission to do so) in the Libyan fight, it would have been more appropriate to illustrate your blog with a picture of one of our cruise missiles screaming towards Brother Leader's air defenses to remind him that, we did not really forget Pan Am Flight 103; or forgave Brother Leader for it. I am venturing that, the Left did not particularly concern itself with French aircraft over Libya. Although, I am sure the French did not forget UTA Flight 772, either. Anyway, Mr.Obama's efforts earned that picture of that cruise missile, the Left's ire notwithstanding...

whatcanisay

There are legitimate reasons for concern about Libya. The West did more than stop a massacre - it supported the overthrowal of the government. I personally welcome this, but it was not permitted by the UN resolution and irked Russian and China, probably making much less likely that they will support humanitarian interventaion in the future. Nor is evidence particularly compelling that Benghazi would have been a more indiscriminate slaughter than, say, Baghdad during the Iraq invasion.

So although I am glad of the outcome of the war, framing the question in the way done (support the overthrowal of Qaddafi or accept outragous crimes against humanity) is at best mistaken, and at worst deliberately misleading.

Also, one might arguably add Vietnam's invasion of Pol Pots Cambodia to the list of belated responses to genocide, if one is prepared to include communists as liberators...

jouris in reply to whatcanisay

The West did more than stop a massacre - it supported the overthrowal of the government. I personally welcome this, but it was not permitted by the UN resolution

I think you can make a strong case that the inability to massacre the rebels was sufficient to result in the overthrow of Qaddafi. And that was pretty obvious at the time the UN resolution was voted on. So to say that Qaddafi's overthrow was contrary to the resolution may be correct from a diplomatic double-speak perspective, but hardly from a reality-based perspective. Any member of the Security Council which did not know that the resolution meant Qaddafi's overthrow was not paying attention.

M.S. - The Economist

Anakha82, while your partisan hawk/dove point may hold for Republicans in Congress wrt Libya, the intervention in Afghanistan was supported by essentially all congressional Democrats. And by me.

"while your partisan hawk/dove point may hold for Republicans in Congress wrt Libya, the intervention in Afghanistan was supported by essentially all congressional Democrats."

Please tell me you're not trying to argue that the Democrats are any less susceptible to such partisan pressures. Joe Biden suggested in 2007 that he would attempt to impeach Bush were he to bomb Iran without first receiving Congressional approval. He did not do so when Obama authorized the bombing of Libya.

However, the more accurate comparison here is Iraq. I think in that case we can all agree that the more hawkish party in Congress also happened to occupy the White House.

I would argue that Afghanistan was something of a special case (among recent interventions) in that the invasion was necessary to accomplish a clear material interest of the United States.

Anakha82

@M.S.: "Nevertheless, it is disappointing that a segment of America's left has reacted with such vituperative bile to the US involvement in Libya."

While I supported the intervention in Libya, I am in fact heartened to see opposition to it from the left. Seeing the Republicans and Democrats so quickly switch roles as hawks or doves based on the occupant of the White House is more than a little disturbing. I'd much rather see those who are able to go against their party, (even if they're wrong) rather than reflexively supporting any action by a President of their party.

seize_the_diem

"Judging by evidence recovered in the wreckage of Qaddafi regime offices in Tripoli, it seems that in March Mr Kucinich sent letters to staff members of Muammar Qaddafi's son Saif, asking for evidence that might discredit the Libyan rebels and undermine the Obama administration's decision to intervene."

You can't just tell me that as an aside. Seriously?! Can that be considered a "lite treason"?

William Morris

Do you actually believe the non-sense you write?

Hundreds of thousands of Serbs were ethnically cleaned from Kosovo. Thousands of Serbs were killed by Kosovar KLA terrorists, long before the NATO bombings. KLA and Al-Quaeda in Kosovo were supported by the US in their terrorist activities in order to build, in Kosovo, one of the largest US military bases in the world.

The Libya intervention had no "noble" reasons either. Quaddafi was messing with Africom and playing with a potential gold-backed African currency. He didn't play ball, so he was eliminated.

Kosovo and Libya mass slaughter of civilians were myths created to justify wars. Just like the incubator babies in Iraq. I suppose you stand by those lies too?

RestrainedRadical

Wow, MS, didn't expect this from you.

I'm one of those who criticized Obama for "leading from behind." In particular, his dithering for a week while Qaddafi was shelling his people. For me, the people who deserve the credit are Samantha Power and Hillary Clinton. As Lindsey Graham said, "I don't know how many people have died as we wait to do something. Thank God for strong women in the Obama administration."

To those who are bothered by Obama violating the War Powers Act, I'm not even sure the act is constitutional, but if you really believe it was illegal then it's clear what you do have to do; Petition Congress to impeach him. Otherwise, you're admitting that the War Powers Act is merely a polite suggestion.

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