Over the last few days, we’ve been hearing that President Obama – along with British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy – are considering arming the anti-Qaddafi forces in Libya (Reuters via Yahoo); already, a presidential finding is in place to make it happen (Reuters).
About two weeks ago, I made the case for just this policy. I still consider it the best option: it makes the anti-Qaddafi forces more dependent upon us; it can be limited initially to keep them viable, but not triumphant, until we figure out who among them are our friends; by steering the military aid to our friends, once we’ve determined who they are, we can ensure Qaddafi is replaced by pro-American forces instead of pro-al Qaeda ones. The policy worked like a charm in Ethiopia, where over a decade an anti-American Marxist rebel group was turned into a pro-American force that won the civil war in 1991 and made Ethiopia one of our best allies on the African continent. It can work again here.
By contrast, the air campaign has been far more indiscriminate (pro-American and anti-American rebels are both helped) and continues to risk American personnel. This would be the case even if the air campaign was properly explained to the American people – which, to date, has not been the case.
What we need now is to set a benchmark for the air campaign, meet it, and withdraw our forces. Let Libyans willing to fight Qaddafi do so, with weapons from us targeted towards boosting the pro-American forces within the resistance. If they don’t exist, arm the resistance enough to keep Qaddafi busy, but not to win until it improves its opinion towards us.
There is still a chance to get this right. I hope the president takes it, even accidentally.
Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal
Filed under: International Politics
DJ,
While I normally agree with you I must strongly dissent here. Giving the resistance weapons is a horrible idea and will do nothing to expand our influence with them.
Here are the facts:
1. A sizable portion of the resistance is either loosely affiliated with AQ or sympathetic to AQ. Eastern Libya, where the resistance is based, sent more insurgents to fight our troops in Iraq than any other place in the world. Unless it is a matter of immediate national security concern, we should not be giving sophisticated weaponry to people we will have to fight sooner or later (probably sooner).
2. Weapons really aren’t the issue in this fight. The resistance has state of the art air support that more than compensates for whatever arms advantages Qadaffi holds over them. Indeed, based on reports I saw yesterday, the resistance has a sizable cache of sophisticated weaponry it captured during the ultimately unsuccessful offensive they launched a few days ago–including surface to air missles, heavy mortars and an unlimited number of RPGs. The fact is that the resistance is inept, their troops don’t know how to use the weapons they have and they lack fighting spirit or compentent field commanders. Arming them to the teeth is only going to give Qadaffi or AQ a windfall when the weapons are abandoned or taken with the fleeing rebels when they are ultimately defeated.
3. The ideal outcome in Libya would be a long, protracted civil war that blleds the country dry–like Iran-Iraq. Both sides hate us and we would be better off if they were both filling body bags rather than having one triumph over the other. We probably do need to kill Qadaffi to avoid looking week, but if one of his sons takes over the reigns in the midst of a bloody, protracted war, so much the better.
4. We would be better served focusing our capabilities on Syria. We could arm rebels and give them safe haven in Iraq from which to conduct operations. We could also run covert ops out of Jordan and subcontract additional wet work to the Israelis who would be positively thrilled to kill off the Assads and take it to Hezbollah. This would actually serve our geostrategic interests and put a thumb squarely in the eye of Iran. Moreover, the Assad regime holds power at the behest of a tiny minority that is despised by the Sunni majority, so we would have a clear numerical advantage going in–not the case in Libya.
Quite frankly, I don’t think the President is “stumbling toward” anything here. This is the way things should work when you have an intelligent, deliberative leader who sees all of the angles and shows concern for things like the lives of our troops, geopolitical ramifications and budget implications. The fact that both the far-left and far-right aren’t happy is one of the better indications that he’s played this correctly.
Look, DJ, I know you’re a Republican and you don’t like Obama. And that’s fine. I respect that. But don’t be afraid to give the guy some credit. I’m a Dem, but I’ve never been shy about praising Reagan, Bush 41 and even W (shutter) when it was due.