David Owen: Libyan Intervention Shows Power of the West
Lord Owen is a former Foreign Secretary.
During the darkest moments of Nato’s campaign in Libya, it was suggested that its sluggish progress represented the death knell for the doctrine of humanitarian intervention – that a West chastened by its experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan and enfeebled by debt lacked the money, the morale and the military resources to take action against those who broke international law. Now that the rebels have swept into Tripoli, the opposite argument is being made – that their success represents a vindication of the Nato strategy, and provides a template for the toppling of despots in Syria and elsewhere.
The truth, however, is that Libya is not a successor to Kosovo or Sierra Leone. Instead, it is the prototype for a new kind of intervention, one that reflects the very different world that we find ourselves in today.
From the start, the campaign faced a wall of scepticism from military and diplomatic experts. Yet it was sustained by a number of important features: first, it was entirely legal, authorised by the UN through the Security Council, and second, it resonated with those ashamed by our inertia over Rwanda and Srebrenica. There was also admirable unity between the political parties: while public opinion was divided, David Cameron and William Hague were supported at every stage by Ed Miliband and Douglas Alexander...