The Responsibility to Protect: Libya and Beyond
Whilst Libya is no doubt important, it is but the tip of the iceberg. In the long run, timely and decisive action such as the international action in Libya will continue to be a recurrent but painful necessity. Yet, we will make most progress towards a world without mass atrocities by reducing the number of cases that become so acute and preventing crises from escalating to the point of imminent catastrophe.
The Dilemma of Humanitarian Intervention
Given how the Security Council has acted with regard to Libya via Resolution 1973, many have queried its failure to act in other situations, such as Bahrain, Yemen and Syria. The lethal responses by the governments of those countries to pro-democracy protests are appalling, but it cannot be said that the crisis in those States has reached the proportions of Libya. After all, humanitarian intervention is war.
THE INTERVENTION BUBBLE CYCLE
There is a cycle developing in American post Cold War foreign policy that is not very different from a financial investment cycle. First, there is a cautious military action which, if successful, leads quickly to the hubris of distant military interventions, which then produces over-reach and disaster, the bubble and the burst if you will, and finally, the resolve into timidity.
Military intervention against Gaddafi might shake the regime in Iran
Recent mutterings in the western corridors of power for an intervention in Libya are now being translated into a potential reality. Although the Iranian opposition symbolically attempts to distant itself from the outside, the regime knows that a military intervention in Libya could have serious implications for the regime in Tehran.
How to Save a Revolution
The Libyan opposition has shown great courage and serious miscalculation. Principally, they failed to take into account the loyalty, training, and resources of Colonel Ghaddafi’s forces. They also failed to realize that revolutions such as theirs depend on non-violence. Influenced perhaps by calls for no-fly zones and other forms of foreign military intervention in Egypt, they have failed to understand both the importance of non-violence and the importance of self-reliance.
What If Libya’s Qaddafi Hangs On?
Rather than unambiguously backing the cause of freedom in Libya, Western governments seem to be reconciling themselves to the possibility that the regime of Muammar Qaddafi might remain in power. If this is the case the world must prepare for the possible re-emergence of a global threat, Libya’s WMD program.
Libya: The First Stand or the Last Post for the Responsibility to Protect?
When security forces, meant to protect people, are instead let loose in a killing spree, the state itself becomes the prime perpetrator of atrocities. With precisely such an unfolding scenario, Libya today is the place and time to redeem or renege on R2P’s solemn pledge.
