Statebuilding in Libya is not optional

While top officials scramble to straighten out how NATO will handle Libya, the situation on the ground there is getting much less attention than it merits.  Our new-found rebel friends are not doing well, either in their military efforts or in their attempts to create a proto-governing structure.  Heather Hurlburt writes at The New Republic:

I am less frantic about the endgame than many observers, not because I am more sanguine but because very often planners who have a clear endgame in mind are deluding themselves anyway. (The architects of the Iraq War believed they had thought through how everything would play out).

She certainly has a point about the architects of the Iraq war, but that is no reason for not planning now for the end of the Libya war, which will pose difficult problems, whenever it happens.

Libya is a country with less than a complete state, a condition that is readily exploited for nefarious purposes (in the past colonial ones, in this century usually extremist ones).  No one should imagine that the state is going to emerge magically from the ashes, ready to accept whatever new leadership we decide it deserves. That in fact was the thoroughly flawed plan for “decapitation” at the end of the Iraq war that she refers to so disparagingly.

Nor should we be imagining that building a Libyan state is somehow a U.S. responsibility, though it is not unreasonable to expect the Americans to contribute in some way to the effort.  Arab League?  Doubtful.  UN?  Lots of experience, limited means.  EU? Decent experience, lots of means, geographic proximity.  It seems to me there are ample options–the important thing is to decide who will lead (I’d obviously opt for the Europeans) and then try to ensure that whoever does brings to bear the necessary resources.

Leaving state-building after this war to chance is dangerous.  It could mean a partitioned Libya, or one that collapses like Somalia, or one that becomes a haven for extremism.  To be fair, Heather also says,

We should be skeptical, frantically collecting information, hedging our bets and figuring out what the various forces are in Libya and how we can promote better outcomes and hedge against worse ones…

That does not go far enough: we need to ensure that Libya after this war is stabilized and develops the kind of state that will not allow it to go off the rails again. Less than that would be irresponsible.  The effort can, indeed should, be led by the Libyans, but they will need help.  If someone forgot to tell the President that state-building was part of the package, that was a big mistake.  Focusing on the end-state may not seem urgent, but it is more important than the NATO scholasticism that has preoccupied the Secretary of State for days.