TEL AVIV - The sense of chaos just keeps
growing in Libya. Given the full-swing
misinformation campaign on all sides, it is hard
to confirm whether the latest reports of Colonel
Muammar Gaddafi's isolation and weakness are
genuine, a product of a psychological campaign
against him by the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), or manipulations of his own.
One threat, however, is looming larger and
larger, and it could dramatically affect all
strategic calculations. Libya may soon become a
powder keg too big and fragmented for anyone to
control, including Gaddafi, the rebels, and NATO.
The intensified bombing campaign in the
last few weeks, coupled with a diplomatic
offensive on several tracks, seems to have
softened the resolve of at
least some of Gaddafi's power base. Last Friday,
Russia, which had previously been sharply critical
to NATO's campaign, joined the countries calling
for Gaddafi's ouster, and offered to mediate an
end to the conflict. On Monday, eight senior
officers, including five generals, and (according
to rebel reports) ''scores'' of soldiers defected
from the government army. The officers may have
been persuaded to do so in part by a shift in NATO
tactics toward bombing assets that are important
to them. [1]
It is far from clear,
however, that these developments alone will change
the status quo significantly. On Tuesday, Gaddafi
told visiting South African President Jacob Zuma
that he would not give up power, and Libyan
government spokesman Ibrahim Moussa warned that
such a scenario would lead to full-scale civil
war. Gaddafi did tell Zuma that he was willing to
negotiate.
Some speculated that Russia
sensed that Gaddafi's downfall was inevitable, but
it is hard to gauge how sincere the Kremlin shift
is. Persistent reports of secret talks between the
rebels, Gaddafi and possibly NATO have raised the
possibility of a secret deal being in the works;
some pundits suggest that such a deal may involve
a transfer of power within the Gaddafi family, for
example to Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam.
Russia's diplomacy on Libya has arguably
been driven by ulterior motives since the start of
the crisis, [2] and we can expect the Kremlin to
have extracted a handsome price for even a slight
change in its position. Some analysts speculate
that such a price might manifest itself, for
example, in American concessions over the missile
defense system in Europe.
The impact of
the defections is hard to measure as well. Gaddafi
has also claimed that large numbers of rebels have
surrendered to him, and it is difficult to confirm
the scope of such occurrences and the veracity of
reports on both sides. Besides, it is useful to
keep in mind just how fluid the situation on the
ground can sometimes be.
In the early days
of the uprising, Western journalists were
frequently surprised to see the same people
participating in anti-Gaddafi rallies one day and
in pro-Gaddafi rallies the next. It is possible
that we are witnessing a similar phenomenon now,
with at least some people circulating between the
sides. The reports of back-channel negotiations
between the seemingly irreconcilable rival
governments add to these suspicions.
It is
hardly a surprise, therefore, that NATO's bombing
campaign is growing increasingly desperate. On
Tuesday, Libya accused NATO of having killed 718
and injured 4,067 civilians since the start of the
operation. These figures are hard to verify, but
the air raids have recently intensified and the
potential targets have broadened, making
collateral damage more likely.
British and
French attack helicopters are expected to be put
to use soon, and as I argued previously, this
could be seen as a precursor to a ground invasion.
[3] In fact, NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh
Rasmussen admitted on Monday that NATO might send
ground forces to Libya at some point, presumably
after Gaddafi's ouster. ''I would anticipate that
there might be a need at some point to unfold a
small force ... a small number of people there to
help them in some way," he told a NATO forum in
Varna, Bulgaria. [4]
The Guardian
meanwhile reported that small groups of former
British special forces, hired privately by Arab
countries, are already on the ground in the
western port city of Misrata. [5]
This may
be the beginning of a public legitimization
campaign of a ground phase of the war. Beyond
that, however, Rasmussen's remarks betrayed
another reality on the ground: one where not only
is the war difficult to win, but peace might prove
an even greater challenge. Even if Gaddafi were to
leave today, a peacekeeping force would clearly be
required; it is far from clear that it would do
the job.
There seems to be at least one
reason which might theoretically persuade Gaddafi
to relinquish power, or at least to confine
himself to some limited part of Libya where he
would be able to maintain control. That dynamic
has not received sufficient reporting from the
international media, even though there were signs
of it from the very start.
It is hard to
overstate the significance of the vast weapons
supplies that were looted in the first weeks of
chaos following the uprising. ''What we found was
shocking,'' Peter Bouckaert, a Human Rights Watch
expert who was in the country at the time. wrote
in Foreign Policy in April. ''Qaddafi's weapon
stocks far exceeded what we saw in Iraq after the
fall of Saddam Hussein ... There is good cause for
US and European officials to worry - there are
rocket-propelled grenades, surface-to-air
missiles, and artillery shells full of explosives
that can easily be refashioned into car bombs.''
[6]
This is not even to mention the many
thousands of guns that are circulating freely in
Libya, some reportedly released by Gaddafi himself
in an effort to arm the population against a
''Western invasion".
Tell-tale signs
emerge in the rebels' own accounts. On Tuesday, a
rebel spokesman told Reuters that ''[Gaddafi
forces] filled [the rebel-held western town of
Zlitan] with drug dealers, criminals and other
crooks ... They gave them automatic weapons and
hand grenades to oppress the residents of Zlitan.
Besides arrests and intimidations, we hear
accounts of rape." [7]
The reports remain
to be confirmed; the potential for the creation of
powerful criminal structures is clearly there,
however, and such structures would soon enough
begin to pursue their own interests rather than
Gaddafi's or the rebels'. They have a powerful
arsenal at their disposal as well as a large pool
of potential foot-soldiers: the countless
unemployed and radicalized people on the ground -
whose allegiances often shift. Many convicts
escaped from the jails during the uprising, so
there is no shortage of trained operatives either.
There is also a looming threat that tribal
identities might at some point trump loyalty to
either Gaddafi or the rebels. Taken together,
these threats add up to a recipe for a disaster.
While until recently it was unlikely that any one
except for Gaddafi would be able prevent the
implosion of Libya into a full-scale brutal civil
war, now it is unclear that even the colonel can
do that.
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