Jonathan Freedland: We've avoided a Libyan Srebrenica, so when is the bombing going to stop?
[Jonathan Freedland writes a weekly column for the Guardian.]
Barely through the entrance and we're looking for the exit. The Libyan intervention is just 11 days old, but already the clamour is for an end. Polls show almost identical levels of weak support on both sides of the Atlantic, a meagre 45% in Britain and 47% in the US. (At the equivalent stage, 90% of Americans backed the war in Afghanistan, and 70% supported the invasion of Iraq.) Each day brings conflicting signals as to whether the end is near. News of rebel advances on Monday brought hope that Colonel Gaddafi might be gone by the end of the week. The morning bulletins on Tuesday brought word of pro-Gaddafi successes, suggesting that the dictator would not be out any time soon.
That's what a protracted civil war could look like, a tug of war between two armed groups where the momentum shifts back and forth. But this very pattern presents an awkward question for the alliance thumping Libya and for all those who supported this intervention: a question that becomes all the more urgent on those days when the rebel forces do well.
Put simply, how can the allies keep attacking Libya if the threat that brought them there is receding? The UN approved military action – with the backing of the Arab League and the pointed non-opposition of Russia and China – for a very specific reason: to"protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack". That was the legal form of words, but the moral case was direct. Gaddafi had his"knife to the throat" of the civilians of Benghazi; if he were not stopped, he would stage a massacre.
Yet on Monday Barack Obama was glad to tell the American people:"Tonight, I can report that we have stopped Gaddafi's deadly advance."..
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
Barely through the entrance and we're looking for the exit. The Libyan intervention is just 11 days old, but already the clamour is for an end. Polls show almost identical levels of weak support on both sides of the Atlantic, a meagre 45% in Britain and 47% in the US. (At the equivalent stage, 90% of Americans backed the war in Afghanistan, and 70% supported the invasion of Iraq.) Each day brings conflicting signals as to whether the end is near. News of rebel advances on Monday brought hope that Colonel Gaddafi might be gone by the end of the week. The morning bulletins on Tuesday brought word of pro-Gaddafi successes, suggesting that the dictator would not be out any time soon.
That's what a protracted civil war could look like, a tug of war between two armed groups where the momentum shifts back and forth. But this very pattern presents an awkward question for the alliance thumping Libya and for all those who supported this intervention: a question that becomes all the more urgent on those days when the rebel forces do well.
Put simply, how can the allies keep attacking Libya if the threat that brought them there is receding? The UN approved military action – with the backing of the Arab League and the pointed non-opposition of Russia and China – for a very specific reason: to"protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack". That was the legal form of words, but the moral case was direct. Gaddafi had his"knife to the throat" of the civilians of Benghazi; if he were not stopped, he would stage a massacre.
Yet on Monday Barack Obama was glad to tell the American people:"Tonight, I can report that we have stopped Gaddafi's deadly advance."..