No illusions; Intervention in the Arab awakening The Economist March 19, 2011
The Arab awakening is succumbing to violence. The outside world has a duty to act
UNTIL the Arab awakening reached Libya, protesters seemed able to prevail armed with little more than self-belief. Not any more. In Bahrain the regime's troops, reinforced by foreigners—mostly Saudis—have stormed the protesters' tent-city at Pearl roundabout, shooting as they went. In Yemen the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh has taken to firing live rounds into the crowds. And in Libya itself, as Muammar Qaddafi seizes back the rebel towns strung along the Mediterranean coast, the people are reaping the whirlwind. Torture and death are rampaging through Brega and Zawiya. Terror and despair loom over Tobruk and Benghazi.
As the violence escalates, the outside world no longer has the easy option of simply backing the "reform" of corrupt and oppressive regimes. Instead, it faces hard choices. Are countries content to sit on their hands and watch rebels die? And if they feel they must step in, what exactly can they do?
In Libya, at least, those questions are fast becoming the business of historians rather than policymakers. The moment will soon have passed when a no-fly zone designed to stop Colonel Qaddafi from using his air force could offer civilians much protection. As The Economist went to press, the UN Security Council was at last discussing this but Colonel Qaddafi was advancing towards Benghazi (see
). If he arrives at the city, its people will need more than just air cover to save them in what could be a bloody and long-drawn-out battle.
Democracies wisely set obstacles in the way of those who seek to put the world to rights by fighting—however good their motives. Bitter experience in Iraq has taught how liberators soon come to be seen as oppressors. Western troops have found that when they wage war, they own the mess they have created. You cannot fight people into behaving well.
At the same time, democracies shrink from the idea that might is right. After the genocide in Rwanda, nations took on a duty to stop mass-killing if they could. Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Liberia all showed that outsiders can in fact help avert catastrophes. The Arab awakening is all about human dignity and the rights of ordinary people—values that the West lives by and seeks to promote. For the West to turn its back on Libya's rebels and to stand aside while its allies shoot protesters in Bahrain betrays its own values.
Confronted by the contradictory urges to do good and steer clear, the West has so far accomplished neither. Even as the Arab League and the Gulf Co-operation Council have called for international action against Colonel Qaddafi, the West has temporised and rebel towns have fallen. Europe is at its chaotic worst. France and Britain want a no-fly zone, but Germany, deaf to the pleas of Libyans, sees only risks and entanglement. And in America Barack Obama has summoned up the will to condemn violence and oppression, but, until far too late, studiously avoided summoning up the means to do much about it—a weak stance for a superpower (see Lexington).
Those who wish America to be a force for good will find that disappointing. But those who rejected George Bush's searing and bloody pursuit of democracy should reflect on how they got what they sought.
No universal formula can cut through the contradiction between values and interests in foreign policy—that is why intervention in Vietnam and Somalia led to neglect in Rwanda, which set the scene for intervention once more in Bosnia and Iraq. And it is why foreign policy is condemned to live with an age-old dilemma. If the West sacrifices its place in the world to its values, then it will be less able to promote them. On the other hand, if the West always puts narrow realpolitik before its values, then its values will be tainted in the eyes of the world.
By that test, the West let down the Bahrainis: sterner talk from Mr Obama may have deterred their attackers. Yet the West does still have options in Libya. To send in Western ground forces would be to own a dysfunctional, violent place. But the West can seize upon Arab backing to help protect eastern Libya. It should jam Colonel Qaddafi's communications and rush in a no-fly zone. If the regime begins to pound Benghazi, then aircraft—including Arab aircraft—should destroy Colonel Qaddafi's tanks, artillery and gunboats.
Have no illusions about the risks of such a policy. Bombing Libyan armour would endanger the lives of pilots and, inevitably, civilians. It would, at least temporarily, partition Libya. The eastern groups under the protection of the outside world may include Islamists and killers who turn out to be just as savage as Colonel Qaddafi. And that is if the policy succeeds.
Even so, these are risks that the West should now take before it is too late. Saving lives in eastern Libya will be hard. Not even trying to save them would be worse.
