The UN needs to hustle

Today is Friday, when the demonstrators will try again to assemble in Tripoli. It has been Libya week, all week.  The situation has gone from bad to worse.  Claiming that the protesters have been drugged by Osama bin Laden, Gaddafi is increasingly delusional and homicidal (forget the picture–it’s the audio you want to hear):

Many Libyans are courageously disloyal to him, but the international community is doing nothing effective.  I hope to have to revise that last phrase, but I see no reason to do so yet.

President Obama was slow to react, apparently because of concern for American citizens in Libya.  When he finally said something, it was forceful and clear, especially on holding people to account.  But there is no clear course of action yet.  Asset freeze?  Travel ban?  Arms embargo?  International Criminal Court referral by the Security Council?

A no-fly zone has pros and cons. I wouldn’t want to waste a lot of effort discussing it at the UN Security Council or at NATO, but I do hope the necessary 6th Fleet assets have been moved into position.  Washington needs to be ready for all contingencies.

The last best hope is that Gaddafi’s loyalists will abandon him to his fate (or commit him to it).  There have been quite a few high-level defections, so that does not seem completely out of the question.  It is difficult to believe someone won’t try.

One mistake the rebel forces are making (hard to call them “protesters” any longer) is violence against the non-Libyan paramilitaries that Gaddafi has imported for protection.  I realize he pays them well, but you don’t want them to stick with Gaddafi because they also fear for their lives.  A promise of back pay and a ticket home would weaken mercenary resolve faster than killing them.

The Administration is apparently defining Libya as a humanitarian and human rights crisis.  If this is an effort to make it easier to invoke “responsibility to protect,” so be it.  But in my way of think Gaddafi’s actions are a clear threat to international peace and security.  The Security Council is on the hook for this one, whether it likes it or not.  The Russians and Chinese apparently asked yesterday for more information about what is happening on the ground.  The Chinese should talk to some of the 12,000 citizens they have already evacuated.

That said, it is a good idea to try to send in a  UN inquiry, a proposition that will apparently be discussed tomorrow at the UN Human Rights Commission.  This is far better than the previous proposition, which was a discussion Monday.

The UN needs to hustle.  People are dying.