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Getting Gaddafi out also requires diplomacy

Tony Cordesman’s tirade against the half-hearted effort NATO is making against Gaddafi’s forces in Libya is all the rage today on my twitter feed. I don’t really disagree with anything he says, but I hope his piece does not distract attention from what really matters: the effort to get Gaddafi out of Tripoli and out of Libya, preferably to someplace that will keep him on a short leash.

Cordesman is of course correct that intensifying the military effort is an important part of the effort to get him to leave. But it should not be the only thing we are doing.

It is hard to write about this because whatever is happening is necessarily out of the public eye. While there are rumors of Washington and London looking for a place to park the Gaddafi family, it is to be expected that we won’t know where that is until the time comes. I trust London and Washington will be prepared to ensure that the family has access to the financial resources it might need to live a prosperous life, though not one in which it can continue to hire a mercenary army (or suborn its hosts). Immunity from prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity is not available (to anyone), but I trust the country that takes the Gaddafis will not be a state party the International Criminal Court.

The problem of course is that Gaddafi may not go. Military means have proven repeatedly and frustratingly ineffective against individuals, whether they be Ratko Mladic (an accused Serbian war criminal), Charles Taylor (who was finally snagged by his Nigerian hosts), Saddam Hussein (who wasn’t captured for more than six months after the U.S. occupied Iraq) or Laurent Gbagbo (the recently surrendered former president of Ivory Coast). Nor is American intelligence much good at predicting where foreign leaders will be so that they can be snagged by the specially trained Special Forces that do that kind of thing.

But if there is something that needs doing besides the intensified military effort that Tony Cordesman recommends, it is an intensified diplomatic effort to get him out of there. I take the Libyan Foreign Minister’s attempt to suggest that Gaddafi might be ready to retire in place, allowing free and fair elections, as a pretty clear sign that the Colonel is feeling the pressure.  But it would be foolish to fall for that as a solution.  He has to go if Libya is to be free.  Even then, it will have a long road ahead.