Tag: Libya
Preparing for post-Qaddafi Libya, shortened
For those who think the full Council on Foreign Relations version is too long, here is my 750-word version, most of which has also been published on CFR’s The Water’s Edge and CNN.com:
Muammar Qaddafi clings to power in Tripoli. The end could come with little warning. That will mark the beginning of a difficult transition in Libya, not the end. We need to be prepared.
The first challenge will be security. Failure to maintain public order is what got us into big trouble in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein’s “stay behind” operation stirred civic unrest and destroyed government buildings. The murder in Libya last month of the overall rebel commander is a reminder that internecine warfare among the more than 45 rebel militias is a real possibility. People who lost family and tribal members to the Gaddafi regime may seek to settle scores. Former regime elements may seek to defend themselves and to “privatize” state assets. Criminals will see opportunities to traffic in arms, drugs and even people.
The humanitarian challenges will be no less daunting. Fighting has displaced at least half a million Libyans from their homes. Perhaps half of those are still in Libya, and many who are not will seek to return quickly once Qaddafi falls. Food, water, shelter and health services need to be secured for the most vulnerable. In addition, keeping water and electricity flowing to the residents of Tripoli and other major urban centers will be vital to maintaining public order, especially if Qaddafi falls this summer.
U.S. interests in Libya are limited, but a relatively successful transition from the Qaddafi regime to a united, stable, more open and democratic Libya would be seen in the region and more widely as a credit to the NATO-led intervention. It would also enable Libya to resume oil and gas exports, demonstrate international community capacity to manage such transitions and encourage positive outcomes to other Arab Spring protests, including those in Yemen and Syria.
Failure to stabilize Libya could lead to chaos, breakup of the Libyan state that sets an unwelcome precedent elsewhere, or restoration of dictatorship. These outcomes would all damage American and allied credibility and likely also cause major problems for our European allies, including shortfalls in energy supplies, loss of major investments and a continuing refugee flow. Refugees could also cause problems in Tunisia, Egypt, and the rest of the Mediterranean.
It is therefore the Europeans, along with the Arab League, who should take the lead in post-Qaddafi stabilization of Libya, under a clear United Nations Security Council mandate that recognizes a legitimate post-Qaddafi Libyan authority and sets out strategic goals for the transition. The goals should include a united and sovereign Libya within its well-established borders that can sustain, govern, and defend itself through inclusive democratic institutions, using Libya’s resources transparently and accountably for the benefit of all its people.
Quick deployment of a peacekeeping force of several thousand paramilitary police, mainly to keep order in Tripoli and other population centers, would help ensure these goals are met. The European Union and its member states can deploy several hundred paramilitaries. Turkey and Arab countries might supply the remainder. An international peacekeeping operation would not administer Libya but would support an inclusive interim authority in maintaining stability, providing humanitarian assistance, and beginning the reconstruction process.
What if this does not work? NATO will need to be prepared to step in. Only as a last resort—to deal with widespread disorder, a threatened breakup of the Libyan state, or a humanitarian catastrophe—should the international community consider armed intervention without the invitation of a legitimate Libyan authority. This could mean U.S. boots on the ground, but only briefly as part of a broader multilateral effort.
Leadership in post-Qaddafi Libya should be passed as quickly as possible to the Libyans, who have already set up local councils and a Transitional National Council, which help to organize and provide services in the liberated portions of the country. These indigenous institutions merit nurturing and support, including unfreezing of Qaddafi-era assets so that the councils in liberated areas can begin to meet the needs of their populations. The post-Qaddafi era has already begun there.
Libya is a resource-rich country with a relatively well-educated citizenry that has demonstrated courage under fire. The country lacks institutions and political experience, but not talent and commitment. The international community should prepare to support Libyan efforts to take charge of the country’s destiny once Qaddafi leaves the scene.
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Post-Qaddafi Libya
I’m traveling tonight, so I’m putting up tomorrow’s blog post today:
Politicians don’t like to answer hypothetical questions, but analysts do. When Paul Stares, who leads CFR’s conflict prevention efforts, asked me a month or so ago to write about post-Qaddafi Libya, I jumped at the opportunity. I’ve been thinking about Libya since the uprising there started six months ago, discussed it in my post-war reconstruction class here at Johns Hopkins/SAIS, and published a few pieces about it on www.peacefare.net.
To my great regret I’ve never been to Libya, but I did work on it at the State Department once upon a time (around 1994), trying to figure out whether we could convince our allies to tap a small portion of frozen Libyan oil assets to compensate families of Pan Am 103 victims. It was a flaky idea the Brits told me. They had what I regarded as an even flakier one: a trial for the perpetrators in a Scottish court convened in The Hague. Go figure.
That was Libya before Qaddafi decided to give up his nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction programs. But in one profound sense nothing changed. Qaddafi gave up his WMD because he feared the Americans would do to Libya what they had done to Iraq. He was still in power and wanted to stay there.
The rebellion in Libya is determined to deny him that privilege. I don’t know whether they are going to succeed. I could certainly write another paper treating a scenario in which he stays in place in Tripoli and central Libya, having lost control of Benghazi and the east (Cyrenaica) as well as parts of the west. But this one focuses on a scenario in which he and the regime collapse. I’ve tried to imagine the most urgent problems arising in the days after Qaddafi’s fall, outline options for dealing with them, and recommend appropriate policies.
The result is Contingency Planning Memorandum 12, the first CFR has done on what most people would define as a post-conflict situation, albeit one that has not yet come into existence. I prefer to refer to “societies emerging from conflict,” since conflict doesn’t end, even if you are relatively successful and violence does. That’s just the point with Libya: there are many ways in which post-Qaddafi Libya could be conflictual and even violent, unless we prepare carefully and take the necessary preventive measures.
I am convinced that American interests do not justify a major U.S. role in the aftermath of Qaddafi’s fall, just as they do not require a continued leading role in the military action the UN Security Council authorized. The Europeans stand to lose oil and gas supplies as well as investments in a chaotic Libya, not to mention the possibility of Libyan migrants reaching Italy, France and Spain in numbers that would cause serious political tension. The Europeans should lead, preferably with a UN Security Council mandate and lots of Arab and African support. We should be prepared to fill in, and step in with NATO intervention if the Europeans fail.
It will be interesting to see how much of what I’ve written holds up in the weeks after Qaddafi loses power. Analysts like hypotheticals more than they like reality, unless they get lucky and hit the mark. We’ll see, soon enough I hope.
PS: “Q”addafi is CFR’s (and the NY Times’) preferred spelling. “G”addafi is what I’ve been using, I don’t remember why. I guess I’m inclined to switch to the usage of my betters. Anyone want to tell me which one is closer to being correct?
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His pants are still on fire
May this be the last time I post this lying bastard’s nonsense:
Already in March his pants were on fire.
PS: Even Tripoli says Saif is lying.
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Three blind mice
I first used this title 15 years ago in a piece for the Secretary of State’s Morning Summary about Presidents Tudjman, Milosevic and Izetbegovic. It drew a personal word of interest and praise from President Clinton. That doesn’t happen often, so a lowly office director tends to remember when it does. And maybe resurrect the charmed title at an appropriate moment.
Today’s three blind mice are chiefs of state Bashar al Assad, Muammar Gaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Syria, Libya and Yemen, respectively. While it is easy now to imagine that things will get worse in these three countries before they get better, it is clear enough that they would be better now if their chiefs had stepped aside long ago to allow orderly transitions. Sunday the Syrian armed forces made a clear summer day in Hama sound like this:
Bashar al Assad therefore rates a word of particular opprobrium: he and his brother Maher are showing themselves heirs to the blood-shedding tradition of their father Hafez. This should not surprise, but people have come to think Bashar is somehow better than the rest of his homicidal family. It just isn’t so.
Things are arguably worse in Libya and Yemen. A kind of multi-faceted tribal, regional and sectarian chaos reigns in the latter, on top of a popular protest movement that remains vigorous and terrorist bands who harbor in the hinterlands. In Libya, the killing by we know not whom of General Abdel Fatah Younes, a rebel military leader who came over from the Gaddafi regime, has raised lots of questions about the Transitional National Council (TNC) that leads the rebellion, which apparently had to fight off Gaddafi forces inside Benghazi over the weekend.
These three Middle Eastern potentates are blind not just to the interests of their countries but also to their own. A few months ago it would have been possible to arrange a decent exit for these embattled chiefs of state. Now the International Criminal Court has indicted Gaddafi, Saleh is nursing wounds in Saudi Arabia and Bashar al Assad cannot hope to escape responsibility for several thousand deaths of peaceful demonstrators. Only Saleh can hope to live out a peaceful old age, and only if he gives up on his ambition to return to Yemen.
What we are lacking here is the farmer’s wife, who is supposed to cut off their tails with a carving knife. By this I mean some international party that can persuade chiefs of state who have lost the consent of the people they govern to step aside. In the midst of this Arab spring Ban Ki Moon was reelected as United Nations Secretary General, but he has not been empowered to negotiate what the international community clearly seeks: abdication of these chiefs of state. He has a clear mandate only with respect to Gaddafi, and that is for a ceasefire and withdrawal rather than abdication.
Several “mediators” have sought compromise solutions. The African Union and Turkey have tried with Libya, Turkey has tried with Syria, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia and its wealthy monarchy friends) has tried with Yemen. None of this has worked so far. What we are witnessing is a failure of diplomacy, which should make us think harder about how to strengthen international norms and institutions that can deliver results more effectively.
That is precisely what is not happening, though I happily credit U.S. ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford (who testifies this week in Congress) for his courageous display of support to the demonstrators. Instead, the U.S. Congress is considering budgets that would slice diplomacy to the bone and limit contributions to international organization. I can’t really say there are 535 blind mice, since some members of Congress understand better than I do what is needed. But the collective decision is likely to disarm the farmer’s wife, leaving her standing there without even a carving knife to discipline the unruly despots of the 21st century.
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My how large your challenges are!
I hope you’ve checked out the “constitutional charter” mentioned in yesterday’s post. It’s worth a glance, if only to convince yourself that the Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC) is serious about projecting a democratic future for the country. Whether they can achieve a democratic future is another question. Here are a few of the things I learned listening yesterday over at the National Endowment for Democracy.
The challenge is enormous. There are now 47 armed groups (including at least a small one with avowed Salafist leanings) in rebellion against a totalitarian system that systematically eviscerated many of the country’s institutions in favor of ensuring that Gaddafi could rule uncontested. The court system was thoroughly corrupted. The bureaucracy was inefficient, but there are capable technocrats who could serve in a new, democratic regime. The country is not only wealthy but relatively well-educated (unfortunately on a steady diet of the Green Book).
Tripoli is a big pill to swallow. It was intentionally loaded with pro-regime inhabitants even before the current fighting, which has caused more of them to take refuge in the capital. Tripoli fears Benghazi. Maintaining order in the capital will be a huge challenge. No one is thinking of the kind of deep de-Ba’athification conducted in Iraq, but it is not at all clear what to do about vetting and purging the security forces and public administration. Everyone seems to want to avoid rounds of revenge killing, but no one seems to have a real plan how to do it. Experience elsewhere suggests justice for many of those who abused power under the Gaddafi regime will be a long time in the making.
The good news. Libyans like to think they will not fragment along tribal, regional or ethnic lines. They think their version of the Muslim Brotherhood is relatively moderate. Federalism is out. New Libya will be based on national citizenship. Civil society is thriving in the liberated areas, with 300 nongovernmental groups in the east and something like 150 media outlets of one sort or another. There are at least four interconnected local councils associated with the revolution in Tripoli, but Benghazi–which has long been the cultural capital of the country–remains dominant in the anti-Gaddafi effort.
Gaddafi won’t survive long. Few really think Gaddafi will survive long if there is a deal for him to step down from power but not leave Libya. Something like 30,000 Libyan families (on both sides of the fighting) blame him for deaths in the last few months. There is a good deal of concern that his son, Saif al Islam, might try to resuscitate his fortunes if allowed to stay in the country.
Libyans can accept international assistance gracefully, even including a future peacekeeping force if necessary to establish a safe and secure environment. But there is a absorptive capacity problem when it comes to international advice. There are also perception differences. While internationals are counseling that the Libyans should take more time to establish a more inclusive, transparent and accountable process, the Libyans see early elections as the key to sustaining legitimacy with a population that is thirsty for them. The TNC is thinking about a transition period (from fall of Gaddafi through constitution-writing, constitutional referendum and elections) as short as 6 or as long as 13 months. I didn’t see any non-Libyans in the room who thought it could, or should, be accomplished even in the longer of those time frames.
Important things are still unclear. It is not clear whether the TNC or a successor “congress” will carry Libya through the transition process; nor is it clear how the people who write the constitution will be chosen. There appears to be consensus on a constitutional referendum, but no clear consensus yet on the electoral law. International advisors will likely recommend a mixed system, with some representatives chosen from constituencies and some in a proportional system.
No one should look for clarity in Libya, which is fighting a civil war, forming a state and democratizing at the same time. Gaddafi’s continued resistance and the depredations of his regime would make even one of these tasks difficult. But Libya also has advantages: a relatively homogeneous language and culture, easy accessibility, vast resources, a population of manageable size, and no truly hostile neighbors. Most of all, it seems to have serious people ready to think hard about the challenges the country faces.
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The new Libya, in draft
I had the privilege of spending a good part of today with Fathi Mohammed Baja, who represents Benghazi on the Libyan Transitional National Council (TNC) and chairs the TNC’s Political Affairs Advisory Committee, as well as Ali Saeid Ali, who is the TNC’s Secretary General. I’ll have more to say (without quoting individuals from the off the record conversation) about what I learned from a wide-ranging discussion tomorrow. In the meanwhile, here is Libya’s Draft Constitutional Charter for the Transitional Stage.
For those who want the juicy bits right away, turn to Article 28, which outlines the transitional “roadmap.” This is still very much in discussion and subject to change. One of the striking things about the roadmap is that it leads quickly to elections. It was clear from the discussion that this is a strongly felt need in Benghazi, not at all an imposition from outside. The method of selection/election of the Constitutional Authority and whether the TNC will enlarge or a new body will be formed once Tripoli and other areas are liberated is still being discussed.
Article 1 contains the religion clause: “Islam is the Religion of the State and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence.” Rights of non-Moslems are guaranteed, including “respect for their systems of personal status.”
The charter excludes any member of the TNC, of the interim government it establishes or of the local councils from major future national office (Article 29). Nor are members of the TNC allowed to assume other public offices (Article 20). The nepotism rules in Article 20 are also notable, as are the extensive guarantees of human rights in Part Two.
Article 6 is almost poignant: “Libyans are brothers and their official relationship shall be based on law…” The new Libya is intended to be a state formed by citizens (Article 1: the people are the source of authorities).
Best that you read the whole thing. How could anyone not wish these brave folks success in their aspirations, even as we worry about whether they can be achieved?
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