The fight for Libya

The Guardian reports:

Libya’s revolutionary leadership is pressing western powers to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi and launch military strikes against his forces to protect rebel-held cities from the threat of bloody assault.

Mustafa Gheriani, spokesman for the revolutionary national council in its stronghold of Benghazi, said the appeal was to be made by a delegation meeting the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in Paris on Monday, as G8 foreign ministers gathered there to consider whether to back French and British calls for a no-fly zone over Libya.

“We are telling the west we want a no-fly zone, we want tactical strikes against those tanks and rockets that are being used against us and we want a strike against Gaddafi’s compound,” said Gheriani. “This is the message from our delegation in Europe.”

Asked if that meant that the revolutionary council wanted the west to assassinate Gaddafi, Gheriani replied: “Why not? If he dies, nobody will shed a tear.”

But with diplomatic wrangling focused on the issue of the no-fly zone, there appeared to be little immediate prospect of a foreign military assault on Gaddafi’s forces, let alone an air strike against the Libyan dictator.

Christian Science Monitor reports:

On Libya’s eastern front, taking towns may be easy for Col. Muammar Qaddafi – but holding them is something else again.

After days of being pounded by rocket fire and bombing runs from forces loyal to Qaddafi, Libya’s rebel army piled into their pickup trucks yesterday afternoon and cut a ragged retreat from the oil town of Brega to Ajdabiya, 40 miles to the east. They left mounds of ammunition and supplies behind them as they fled, Qaddafi’s fighters surging behind.

That was all according to plan, says Mohammed el-Majbouli.

“We drew [Qaddafi’s forces] forward, and then we maneuvered behind them and trapped them,” says Mr. Majbouli, a former member of Qaddafi’s special forces who is now organizing rebel fighters.

He says a reserve force of rebels with military training had been hidden in homes in the eastern third of the sprawling petrochemical complex at Brega. After the Qaddafi men passed at about 8 p.m. last night, the rebels came out, retaking the town as well as about 20 prisoners from Qaddafi’s forces.

Majbouli’s claim of victory, which is also made by senior officers who have defected to the rebel cause, could not be independently confirmed. But if he is right, it would be the fourth time Brega has changed hands in less than two weeks, emphasizing the strange, shimmering nature of the conflict being fought in Libya’s coastal desert.

While it remains easy for Qaddafi to rain mortars and rockets on rebel checkpoints, he doesn’t appear to have more than a few thousand men, at most, committed to his eastward advance. Without indiscriminate fire on the cities of Ajdabiya or Benghazi – just the sort of act that might galvanize the international community into action, which Qaddafi is likely keen to avoid – it’s hard to see his forces advancing quickly much farther east.

On Saturday, The Guardian reported:

Muammar Gaddafi’s army won control of a strategic rebel-held Libyan town and laid siege to another as the revolutionary administration in Benghazi again appealed for foreign military help to prevent what it said would be the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people if the insurgents were to lose.

The rebels admitted retreating from the oil town of Ras Lanuf – captured a week ago – after two days of intense fighting and that the nearby town of Brega was now threatened.

The revolutionary army, in large part made up of inexperienced young volunteers, has been forced back by a sustained artillery, tank and air bombardment about 20 miles along the road to the rebel capital of Benghazi.

The head of Libya’s revolutionary council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, claimed that if Gaddafi’s forces were to reach the country’s second-largest city it would result in “the death of half a million” people.

Robin Yassin-Kassab writes:

In 2003 America and Britain invaded Iraq without a United Nations mandate. Today NATO is emphasising that it won’t move without both a UN resolution and substantial political support from the Arabs. The Arab League has now called for a no-fly zone.

At the League meeting Omani foreign minister Yusuf bin Alawi warned that if the Arabs didn’t take a strong stance they would open the door to unwanted foreign interference. This may seem contradictory: at the same time he asked the UN to intervene. But his point is a good one. If NATO forces act under a UN resolution and responding to an Arab request, the Arabs will be well-placed to end the intervention at the right moment.

I understand the worries of those who fear Western intervention, after all the West’s crimes against the Arab world. I wish the Arabs were capable of moving by themselves (and I certainly hope that once the revolutions have run their course we will finally see an independent Arab world taking care of internal Arab problems). I like Asa’ad Abu Khalil’s idea of using Egypt and Tunisa as staging posts for volunteer Arab soldiers who wish to aid their brothers in Libya.

It’s a difficult, cloudy situation. The only clear thing is that the Libyans need immediate help. The Transitional National Council’s warning that half a million will be killed is not mere rhetoric, but an entirely logical and legitimate fear.

Ahram Online reports:

Thousands of Libyans march down the Corniche in Benghazi, chanting, “Free Libya,” “Revolutionaries,” “Beasts,” and other slogans. It is part of their military training. They are all volunteers, who chose to become fighters and join the rebel forces in areas like Ras Lanuf, Brega and Zawiyah , which are experiencing heavy air strikes by Gaddafi’s forces.
Among those is Ahmed, 25 years old, an Egyptian who has worked in construction in Libya for the past four years. In spite of his family’s pleas, he refuses to leave Libya. “I came to Libya and it was prosperous, I will leave it as prosperous as it was. I will stay here and fight with my friends until Libya is free, just like Egypt is free now,” said Ahmed who looked pale, but seemed very confident of victory and liberation.

Ahmed is one of many Egyptians who decided to stay and join the Libyan revolution. The volunteers are from both genders and all ages. Nada, 18, is a student who was born to an Egyptian mother and a Libyan father. She was born in Alexandria, but moved to Benghazi at the age of eight and has been living there ever since. She still visits Egypt every year.

“I love Egypt, it’s my second home, but I love Libya too, and I am going to stay and fight where I am needed,” said Nada passionately. Nada wears her hair short and she looks very practical in her suit and yellow shirt, which signifies that she is one of the organizers of the anti-Gaddafi sit-in. She joined the sit-in on February 18, along with her mother, another supervisor.

The Independent reports:

Four men have been arrested for the murder of an Al Jazeera journalist and evidence has emerged that Muammar Gaddafi’s regime is sending undercover squads to carry out a campaign of assassinations, rebel officials claimed yesterday.

The Independent was told that four men were caught in the city of Ajdabiya with evidence linking them to the death of Ali Hassaon Al Jaber, who was killed near Benghazi on Saturday. Under questioning, the suspects allegedly confessed they had been ordered to silence opposition figures and drive out international presence from territories of the protest movement.

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The Arab spring is brighter than ever

Brian Whitaker writes:

“The Arab world’s much-heralded collective push toward democracy is now in jeopardy,” an article for McClatchy newspapers in the US informed its readers at the weekend.

The fact that autocratic regimes in Libya, Bahrain and Yemen are fighting back with lethal force should surprise no one. The more surprising thing is that Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt – two leaders previously regarded as firmly entrenched – were toppled after such a short struggle.

Nor does the fightback mean, as the article’s headline suggests, that the outlook for democracy is dimming across much of the Middle East. Looking at the region as a whole, the prospects have never been brighter.

But there is another – far bigger – problem with this revolution-in-jeopardy analysis. By focusing on “democracy” and the ousting of dictators, it ignores a large part of what the Arab revolt is about. It’s the same mistake that George Bush made with his calls for democracy and “regime change” in the Middle East – calls that were directed mainly against the regimes deemed hostile towards the US and paid little attention to the desires of ordinary Arabs.

Arabs don’t talk much about democracy as such, and they tend to be cynical about elections. They do talk increasingly about “freedom”, though what they mean by it is not quite what Bush meant. They want freedom from corruption and political cronyism, and the freedom to make their own choices – an end to repression and government attempts to control the minutiae of people’s lives.

Democracy may be one way of working towards that but it is rarely seen as a goal in itself, and while regime change is certainly an important part of the revolt, its younger activists (at least) have their eyes set on changing whole systems, not just the political leaders.

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Why Palestinians will protest on March 15

Rawan Abu-Shahla writes:

We are a group of Palestinian youths who have come together for the sole purpose of leaving behind our political identities and affiliations, and deciding to put our best interests above all else, united under our Palestinian flag. We have called for peaceful demonstrations on Tuesday, 15 March across the Palestinian nation — in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the territories of 1948 and the Palestinian diaspora, calling out together one slogan: “The people want to end the division!”

We call for peaceful actions in support of unity in the Palestinian political scene under one banner, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

Division in the Palestinian body politic has affected every aspect of our lives: socially, economically, educationally and intellectually. It is ordinary Palestinians who have paid the price of the four-year long division that serves no one but the Israeli occupier.

Our campaign to end the division started out as a thought which stirred discussion, and some youths decided to give it a try and did everything possible to make this initiative happen. Day after day, the idea grew and became a plan and then a public decision to not be silenced anymore, not to be terrorized or oppressed and most importantly, not to be ignored and forgotten anymore. That is how we came to our decision to demonstrate on 15 March, state the public’s refusal of the status quo and the practices of the political “leadership.”

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Europeans are losing their illusions about Israel

Daud Abdullah writes:

In Europe, Israel has historically enjoyed a high level of support, not least because it was perceived as a progressive democracy in a sea of Arab backwardness. At the same time, most Europeans knew very little about the Israel-Palestine conflict: as recently as 2004, the Glasgow University Media Group found that only 9% of British students knew that the Israelis were the illegal occupiers of Palestinian land. Astonishingly, there were actually more people (11%) who believed that the Palestinians were occupying the territories.

However, according to a new poll by ICM for the Middle East Monitor, Europeans’ perception of Israel has changed decisively, and their understanding of the Israel-Palestine conflict, while still giving some cause for concern, has improved significantly. The survey of 7,000 people in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain reveals only a small minority (10%) now believe their countries should support Israel rather than the Palestinians, while many more, 39%, think they should not.

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The Saudi intervention in Bahrain is a slap in the face of the US

Jean-François Seznec writes:

On Saturday, March 12, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Bahrain, where he called for real reforms to the country’s political system and criticized “baby steps,” which he said would be insufficient to defuse the crisis. The Saudis were called in within a few hours of Gates’s departure, however, showing their disdain for his efforts to reach a negotiated solution. By acting so soon after Gates’s visit, Saudi Arabia has made the United States look at best irrelevant to events in Bahrain, and from the Shiite opposition’s point of view, even complicit in the Saudi military intervention.

The number of foreign troop is so far very small and should not make one iota of difference in Bahrain’s balance of power. The Bahraini military already total 30,000 troops, all of whom are Sunnis. They are under control of Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa and supposedly fully faithful to King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. Bahrain also has a similar number of police and general security forces, mainly mercenaries from Baluchistan, Yemen, and Syria, reputed to be controlled by the prime minister and his followers in the family.

At this time, therefore, the Saudi intervention is largely a symbolic maneuver. It is so far not an effort to quell the unrest, but intended to scare the more extreme Shiite groups into allowing negotiations to go forward. The crown prince recently laid out six main issues to be discussed in talks, including the establishment of an elected parliament empowered to affect government policy, fairly demarcated electoral constituencies, steps to combat financial and administrative corruption, and moves to limit sectarian polarization. He notably failed to mention one of the opposition’s primary demands — the prime minister’s resignation.

The Saudi move, however, risks backfiring. It is extremely unlikely that the Saudi troops’ presence will entice moderate Shiite and Sunni opposition figures to come to the table — the intervention will force them to harden their position for fear of being seen as Saudi stooges. The demands of the more extreme groups, such as the Shiite al-Haq party, are also likely to increase prior to negotiations. These elements, having seen job opportunities go to foreign workers and political power dominated by the ruling family for decades, have grown steadily disenchanted with prospects of talks.

The crown prince is well aware that the Saudi intervention only makes a negotiated solution to this crisis more challenging, so it is difficult to imagine that he invited the Saudis into Bahrain. The more liberal Khalifas, such as the crown prince, know very well that the only way out of the crisis is to obtain the resignation of the prime minister and some of the more extreme Sunni ministers.

However, the prime minister — with whom Gates did not meet with during his weekend visit — does not appear to have any intention of resigning and is the most likely figure behind the invitation to the Saudis to intervene. Although details are still sketchy, he is likely joining with the Saudi king to pass the message to the United States that he is in charge and no one can tell him what to do. Furthermore, it signals that the Saudis agree with Bahrain’s conservatives that the Shiite must be reined in rather than negotiated with, even at the cost of telling the United States to kiss off.

The Saudi intervention may also have been precipitated by the deepening rift between the extreme Sunni elements and the liberal Khalifas. If the Saudis are indeed heading to Riffa, it is possible they are tasked with defending the Khalifa stronghold not so much against the Shiite rabble but against the Bahraini military, which is under the command of the crown prince. The Saudi intervention would therefore be an effort by the prime minister and the Saudis to pressure the crown prince into not giving in to the protesters’ demands and to fall in line with their plans to secure Bahrain as the personal fiefdom of the Khalifas and their tribal allies.

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Saudis move troops into Bahrain to crush pro-democracy movement

CNN opts for the anodyne and official phrasing “Gulf Cooperation Council security forces,” but the troops who just marched into Bahrain are Saudis.

When US Defense Secretary Gates visited Bahrain on Friday, I assume King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifah gave the US advance warning that his Kingdom would shortly be under something resembling Saudi martial law — just to make sure Washington would voice no more than minimal objections to the latest effort to crush Bahrain’s strengthening democracy movement.

The New York Times reports:

The White House issued a statement on Sunday that said the United States strongly condemned violence that had occurred in Bahrain and Yemen, and added, “We urge the government of Bahrain to pursue a peaceful and meaningful dialogue with the opposition rather than resorting to the use of force.”

And as the Khalifa family and their Saudi overlords ignore this request, what will the White House do? Withdraw the US Fifth Fleet? Not likely!

The Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights describes the Saudi military presence as “an overt occupation of the kingdom of Bahrain and a conspiracy against the unarmed people of Bahrain.” Even while the White House urges the Bahrain government to engage the opposition in dialogue, no doubt Washington will dismiss the suggestion that Bahrain is now under occupation.

Given that Bahrainis already face brutality from security services — the majority of whom are foreign — I don’t know whether they will find the Saudi presence any more intimidating.

To have an idea of what protesters have been up against in recent days, just watch this video showing an unarmed man being hit by tear gas cannisters shot at point blank range:

GCC and now Arab League support for a no-fly zone over Libya (which they most likely expect will not be imposed), has I suspect, less to do with any concern about the fate of Libya’s revolutionaries than it does in fostering a permissive climate in which the Gulf states’ autocratic rulers can offer each other mutual support in their own efforts to counter the political demands coming from their own subjects. Support for a NFZ provides these monarchies with an opportunity to posture as defenders of Arab freedom at the same time that they suppress Arab freedom. Likewise, by opposing Gaddafi, the Gulf rulers want to cast their dictatorships as benign in contrast to Gaddafi’s brutal rule.

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The fight for Libya

Samia Nakhoul reports:

By the time the outside world agrees on a response to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s bloody onslaught against a popular revolt, it could all be over.

The advance of Gaddafi’s better-armed forces, who seem to have shown little regard for civilians when storming in to retake rebel strongholds, has outrun the slow pace of hesitant initiatives being discussed by European, U.S. and Arab leaders.

An Arab League call for the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone to protect the revolt, was welcomed by France, which has taken a lead in backing the rebels and will host G8 foreign ministers in Paris Monday.

But others, notably the United States and other European Union states such as Germany, remain very cautious about military engagement. No U.N. Security Council meeting had yet been scheduled, despite events racing in Libya.

“The international community is dragging its feet,” said Saad Djebbar, a London lawyer and expert on Libyan affairs. “The diplomatic pace is very slow. There is an urgency to act quickly before those people are finished off by Gaddafi’s forces.”

“The international community has to act now — not only to protect Benghazi from an onslaught but because of what it means for the rest of the world if Gaddafi is allowed to remain the leader of Libya,” said Geoff Porter, a U.S.-based political risk consultant who specializes in North Africa.

After the relatively peaceful and speedy overthrow of Arab strongmen in Egypt and Tunisia, Western disarray on Libya may persuade other authoritarian rulers facing unrest, from Yemen to Bahrain, that the best antidote to revolt is violence.

“If they allow Gaddafi to win, that would encourage other Arab despotic regimes to use brutal force against their people to stamp out revolt,” Djebbar said. “This will erase the gains of the people power we have seen in Egypt and Tunis.

“It sends a very bad signal to other movements.”

Reuters reports:

Muammar Gaddafi’s troops seized the strategic Libyan oil town of Brega on Sunday, forcing rebels to retreat eastward and putting extra pressure on world powers still deliberating on a no-fly zone.

The government offensive had already driven the rebels out of Ras Lanuf, another oil terminal 100 km to the west on the coast road, and the seizure of Brega and its refinery deprived the rebels of more territory and yet another source of fuel.

The government, in a message on state television, said it was certain of victory and threatened to “bury” the rebels, who it linked to al Qaeda and “foreign security services.”

Riad Kahwaji writes:

Some Arab defense experts believe it is time for the Arab States to stand up and take responsibilities in their own hands and come to the aid of the Libyans. Retired Major General Khaled Al-Bu Ainnain, former commander of the United Arab Emirates Air Force and Air Defense, believes that some GCC states and Egypt can mount a joint operation and successfully enforce an NFZ over Libya. “The UAE Air Force can deploy couple of squadrons – one F-16 Block 60 and another Mirage 2000-9 – the Saudi Air Force can deploy a couple of F-15S squadrons and Egypt a couple of F-16 squadrons out of Mersi Matrouh Air Base in western Egypt,” Al-Bu Ainnain said. “This would provide 120 fighters and attack aircrafts that would be backed with airborne early warning planes like Egyptian E-2C Hawkeye or Saudi AWACS, some unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for reconnaissance, and air-refueling tankers from Saudi Arabia and couple of Egyptian or UAE helicopter squadrons comp osed of Apache Longbow gunships, Blackhawks and Chinook helicopters, for search and rescue missions.” Crews and troops needed for the operation could be quickly airlifted to western Egypt, and even Algeria, within hours using a large fleet of UAE and Egyptian C-130 and Qatari C-17 transporters.

Observers believe the area of operations for any force executing an NFZ over Libya now would be confined to the area between the capital Tripoli and the City of Cert and down south to Sebha in the center. The rest of the country is under rebel control. The Libyan Air Force is comprised of aging Cold War-era Soviet supplied fighters like Su-22, MiG-21 and MiG-23 and one remaining operational Mirage F-1 and some 30 MiMi-24 Helicopter gunships. According to reports out of Libya, only few Su-22 and MiG-23 aircrafts were seen involved in the air raids in addition to MiMi-24 gunships. As for Air Defense, Gadhafi’s forces are believed to be in possession of a few batteries of Soviet-era SAM-2, SAM-3 and SAM-6 surface to air missiles. “All of the Libyan Air Defense SAM’s and radars can be taken out swiftly by the arsenal of smart weapons and cruise missiles in possession today by GCC and Egyptian Air Forces,” Al-Bu Ainnain said. “Runways can be destr oyed with bunker-busters to ground all the jets, and the gunships can be easily destroyed on the ground.” He pointed out that GCC and Egyptian Air Forces have considerably enhanced their joint-operations capabilities as a result of almost annual exercises they have done together along with the U.S. and some EU countries. “Issues related to command and control and interoperability would be resolved quickly which would ensure a smooth running of NFZ operations.”

The Washington Post reports:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Saturday that the U.S. military, already fighting two wars in Muslim nations, would have no trouble enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya if President Obama orders one.

The comments appeared designed to counter the criticism surrounding his earlier remarks on the issue and came as the Arab League endorsed a no-fly zone to protect Libya’s civilians from forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.

Gates indicated earlier this month that the creation of a no-fly zone would be a “big operation.” NATO would need to deploy an array of air power to target not only defense systems and fighter jets, but also the low-flying attack helicopters that Gaddafi has used against rebels and civilian protesters.

The assessment drew criticism, in particular, from those who favor a more aggressive American response to the Libyan conflict, now tilting back in favor of Gaddafi’s better-armed forces. Some accused Gates of inflating the dangers and scope of a no-fly zone mission over a large desert country with a small population.

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Obama’s regime of secrecy

Mark Benjamin reports:

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley has resigned his post in wake of his too-candid assessment of the incarceration conditions of suspected Wikileaker Private First Class Bradley Manning.

Last Thursday, Crowley told a panel at MIT that the Pentagon’s treatment of Manning at the Marine bring at Quantico, Va., was “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.”

The very next day, President Obama told reporters that he felt Manning’s confinement conditions were “appropriate.” His answer telegraphed a problem for Crowley. “I’ve actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards,” Obama said, suggesting some of those procedures were to protect Manning’s safety. “They have assured me that they are.”

Manning is currently being held alone in his cell 23 hours a day, and was reportedly being stripped naked at night before being given a tear-proof smock for sleeping. Free speech advocates are shocked, and, as I wrote last week on TIME.com, concerned over Obama’s record as the most aggressive prosecutor of suspected government leakers in U.S. history.

Those advocates have wondered whether the penchant for secrecy in the Obama administration comes from the President, or those around him. Obama’s statement on Manning, followed by Crowley’s resignation, seem to suggest some of this comes from the President himself.

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The new Israeli Left

Joseph Dana and Noam Sheizaf write:

As the controversial 443 highway, which connects Tel Aviv with Jerusalem by passing through the West Bank, begins to curve toward Israel’s capital, the eye is inevitably drawn to an imposing gray structure with massive concrete walls, part of the Ofer Military Prison. Commuters are barely aware of what takes place behind those walls, and that’s no accident—the Ofer compound, comprising a military court, detention center and prison, is just one of many black holes that enable Israelis to go on with their daily lives, unaware of the everyday realities of the occupation.

Inside, a man in shackles enters the courtroom. He is wearing a brown prison suit, and his exhausted eyes exchange glances with his wife. The two haven’t met outside the courtroom in more than a year, and for some reason the prison guards are frantically moving the wife so she doesn’t sit too close to her husband, who is officially a “security risk.” Soon the military judge, outfitted in a light green Israel Defense Forces (IDF) uniform and an army beret, enters the room and begins the proceedings.

This trial could be any one of the thousands that have taken place at Ofer. Israeli military justice is swift and unflinching: according to the Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din, the conviction rate at Ofer is an astounding 99.7 percent. Hearings are short, and apart from relatives who use the opportunity to see their loved ones, nobody bothers to attend or report on the proceedings. But today is different. The small courtroom is full, with twenty European diplomats—including the British general consul, Sir Vincent Fean—as well as a handful of Israelis who have become close to the prisoner through years of joint action.

The prisoner, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a 39-year-old schoolteacher and father of three, has already been convicted and has served a sentence for incitement and organizing illegal protests in the West Bank village of Bil’in. But after a prosecutor’s appeal, the judge ordered that he be kept in prison. Abu Rahmah would later receive an additional six months of prison time.

It wasn’t only friendship that brought the Israelis to Ofer. They see the case against Abu Rahmah as part of a new effort to crush unarmed resistance in the West Bank. For them, Abu Rahmah is not just another Palestinian activist. By leading the mostly nonviolent weekly protests in his village against Israel’s separation wall, he has become the face of a new uprising against the occupation and a key player in a kind of activism that has united Jews, Palestinians and people from around the world—one that carries a message of hope, something as unusual and unexpected in this part of the world as the recent uprisings that have toppled Arab tyrannies. It is a hope that can even penetrate the forbidding walls of the Ofer military compound.

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Intifada update

Saudi Arabia’s day of little rage
Friday was Saudi Arabia’s “day of rage”, planned for and anticipated for weeks. But, in the event, there wasn’t even a grumble – unless you count the ongoing protests in the eastern province which had been going on for a week.

The protests in the east, where the Saudi Shia minority is concentrated, were mostly to call for the release of political prisoners. However, across the country there was silence. Many were expecting it to be so, but some wonder why.

Two main factors played a role in this silence. The first was the government’s preparation, with the interior ministry’s warning and the senior clerics’ religious decree prohibiting demonstrations and petitions.

During the week there was also a huge campaign to discourage demonstrations. Saudis were bombarded on TV, in SMS messages and online with rumours that the demonstrations were an Iranian conspiracy, and that those who went out in the streets would be punished with five years’ prison and fines in the thousands of riyals.

Finally, on Friday itself, there was an intimidating security presence all over the major cities, with checkpoints on the roads and helicopters flying above. (Eman Al Nafjan)

Inside Egypt’s revolution and the last days of Mubarak
One editor called me recently to ask for examples of over-the-top extravagance on the part of Mubarak’s family and inner circle. He wanted something outrageous, on par with Imelda Marcos’s shoe collection, or Uday Hussein’s bizarre sex parties. There is really nothing to offer on that level.

Instead, Mubarak’s ultimate crime will be treating his people with contempt – openly disrespecting them for so long that many Egyptians lost both respect for themselves and their ability to change anything that was happening around them.

Mubarak’s 29 years in power had a genuinely corrosive effect on Egyptian society and psychology. He took a proud and ancient civilization and presided over the virtual collapse of its citizens’ sense of public empowerment and political engagement. He taught them how to feel helpless, then made them forget they had ever felt any other way. (Ashraf Khalil)

Oman ruler shifts lawmaking powers
Oman’s ruler is granting lawmaking powers to officials outside the royal family in the boldest reforms yet aimed at quelling protests for jobs and a greater public role in politics.

Sunday’s decree by Sultan Qaboos bin Said follows sweeping cabinet shake-ups and promises for thousands of new civil service posts since demonstrations began late last month in the tightly ruled nation.

The decree gives the abilities to make laws and regulations to two councils one elected and another appointed by the sultan. But it is not immediately clear if the sultan would retain veto power. (Al Jazeera)

Yemen police fire on protesters
Dozens of anti-government protesters in Yemen have been injured after security forces fired live rounds and tear gas at demonstrators in the capital.

Witnesses said police and supporters of the ruling General People’s Congress party attacked protesters occupying University Square on Sunday with live gunfire and tear gas.

Several thousand people had gathered in Sanaa early in the day, setting up barricades in an effort to separate themselves from riot police.

Witnesses said most of the wounded were suffering severe effects from tear gas but some were hit by bullets and two of them were thought to be in a serious condition. (Al Jazeera)

U.S. investigates Bahraini security forces in crackdown
The Obama administration has launched an investigation into the role of Bahraini security forces in violent crackdowns on protesters last month, part of a broader reassessment of U.S. security assistance and big-ticket arms sales to long-time Arab allies caught up in a wave of popular revolts.

Antigovernment protesters tried to break through the human wall created by security forces to stop the march held in Riffa, south of Manama, on Friday.

In a March 10 letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who chairs a Senate panel that oversees foreign aid, the State Department said Washington was “investigating the actions of the Bahraini police and Ministry of Interior forces and assessing their conduct in connection with the protests” last month.

In addition, the State Department said “the administration is reevaluating its procedures for reviewing U.S. security assistance and defense sales during periods of domestic unrest and violence and has specifically included Bahrain in this reassessment.” (Wall Street Journal)

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Libya’s armed protest movement at the edge of an abyss

The coffin of Emad al-Giryani, a former petroleum engineer who fought for the opposition in Ras Lanuf. Some Obama administration officials have said privately that the level of violence in Libya would have to approach the scale of that in Rwanda or Bosnia in the 1990s before the United States would engage militarily. (New York Times)

As some commentators solemnly warn about the dangers of a backlash if the Arab democratic revolution was to become poisoned by American involvement in a no-fly zone over Libya, they fail to note a rising chorus inside Libya: anger towards the United States because of its reluctance to become involved.

There’s stunning paradox here. Three decades ago, America’s support of the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan sowed the seeds for a jihad against America. And now, America’s lack of support for a revolution in Libya may eventually have the same effect.

There are those who would on this basis jump to the conclusion that this demonstrates a visceral hatred of America across the Muslim world, but I would argue the exact opposite: that it demonstrates that attitudes towards America in a region in which it exerts so much influence are predominantly pragmatic and rooted in the present tense: they are a response to whatever the United States is doing or is not doing at any particular time.

Anthony Shadid in one of the finest pieces of reporting to come out of Libya since the fighting started, writes from Ras Lanuf:

Everyone here seems to have a gun these days, in a lawlessness tempered only by revolutionary ebullience. Young men at the front parade with the swagger that a rocket-propelled grenade launcher grants but hint privately that they will try to emigrate if they fail. Anti-American sentiments build, as rebels complain of Western inaction. And the hint of radicalization — religious or something more nihilist — gathers as the momentum in the three-week conflict clearly shifts to the forces of one of the world’s most bizarre leaders.

“This better not go on any longer,” said Dr. Salem Langhi, a surgeon who was working around the clock at a hospital that was abandoned as Colonel Qaddafi’s forces rushed in. “It will only bring misery and hard feelings among people. Losing lives and limbs doesn’t make anyone optimistic.”

No one seems to know what to call this conflict — a revolution, a civil war or, in a translation of what some call it in Arabic, “the events,” a shorthand for confusing violence. It certainly looks like a war — the thud of shelling in the distance offers a cadence to occasional airstrikes, their targets smoking like oil fires that turn afternoon to dusk. The dead and dismembered are ferried in ambulances driven by medical students.

But especially for the rebels, there is an amateurishness to the fighting that began as a protest and became an armed uprising.

“We’re here because we want to be,” said one of the fighters, Mohammed Fawzi.

His sense of a spontaneous gathering offers a prism through which to understand the war: the front at Ras Lanuf is the most militarized version of Tahrir Square in Cairo, where hundreds of thousands wrote a script of opposition and street theater that brought down a strongman everyone thought would die in office. The fighting here feels less like combat in the conventional sense and more like another form of frustrated protest.

Some vehicles bear the inscription Joint Security Committee, but nothing is all that coordinated across a landscape that seems anarchic and lacking in leadership. Fighters don leather jackets from Turkey, Desert Fox-style goggles, ski masks, cowboy hats and World War II-era British waistcoats.

Slogans are scrawled in the street just miles from the fighting. “Muammar is a dog,” one reads. A man who bicycled for three days from Darnah, far to the east, became a local celebrity at the front. Free food is offered, as it was in the canteens in Tahrir, and fighters rummaged through donated clothes. “These are American jeans!” one shouted.

Young men revel in the novelty of having no one to tell them not to play with guns. “God is great!” rings out whenever a volley of bullets is fired into the air.

“Some guys consider this a lot of fun, and they’re hoping the war lasts a lot longer,” said Marwan Buhidma, a 21-year-old computer student who credited video games with helping him figure out how to operate a 14.5-millimeter antiaircraft battery.

An hour or so before Friday’s headlong retreat, a gaggle of young men in aviator sunglasses and knit caps danced on military hardware, thrusting weapons into the air.

“Where is the house of the guy with really bad hair?” they chanted, referring to Colonel Qaddafi, jumping on spent cartridges and empty milk cartons. “Let’s go down the road and see it!”

The protests across the Arab world have disparate demands — from power-sharing in Bahrain to the dismantling of the regime in Egypt. But the demographic shift they represent as a generation comes of age is their constant. It is no different in Libya, where the young look at their parents’ lives in disgust and vow that they will not live without dignity, a say in their future and a constitution — a catchall term for the rule of law.

Nearly 70 percent of Libya’s population is under the age of 34, virtually identical to Egypt’s, and a refrain at the front or faraway in the mountain town of Bayda is that a country blessed with the largest oil reserves in Africa should have better schools, hospitals, roads and housing across a land dominated by Soviet-era monotony.

“People here didn’t revolt because they were hungry, because they wanted power or for religious reasons or something,” said Abdel-Rahman al-Dihami, a young man from Benghazi who had spent days at the front. “They revolted because they deserve better.”

The seeming justice of that revolt has prompted moments of naïveté — time and again, young people express amazement that Colonel Qaddafi’s forces would deploy tanks and warplanes against them — with an incipient and unpredictable frustration over demands unmet.

The revolt remains amorphous, but already, religion has emerged as an axis around which to focus opposition to Colonel Qaddafi’s government, especially across a terrain where little unites it otherwise. The sermon at the front on Friday framed the revolt as a crusade against an infidel leader. “This guy is not a Muslim,” said Jawdeh al-Fakri, the prayer leader. “He has no faith.”

Deserting officers have offered what leadership there is, along with some men who call themselves veterans of fighting in Afghanistan or an Islamist insurgency in eastern Libya in the 1990s. The shift remains tentative — and far short of the accusations made by Colonel Qaddafi that he faces an insurgency led by Al Qaeda — but even the opposition acknowledges the threat of radicalization in a drawn-out conflict.

Dr. Langhi, the surgeon, said he scolded rebels who called themselves mujahedeen — a religious term for pious fighters. “This isn’t our situation,” he pleaded. “This is a revolution.”

Sitting on ammunition boxes, four young men from Benghazi debated the war, as they watched occasional volleys of antiaircraft guns fired at nothing. They promised victory but echoed the anger heard often these days at the United States and the West for failing to impose a no-flight zone, swelling a sense of abandonment.

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Benghazi’s rebels know it is now them or Gaddafi

Chris McGreal reports:

Ask people in Benghazi what awaits them if Muammar Gaddafi’s army fights its way back into the rebel capital and the chances are they will talk about Huda Ben Amer.

Today she is one of the Libyan dictator’s most closely trusted lieutenants, but nearly three decades ago Ben Amer was a young woman in Benghazi keen to earn a name with the regime. Her moment came at the public hanging of one of Gaddafi’s opponents in 1984. Ben Amer rushed forward as the unfortunate man dangled from the rope, wrapped her arms around his body and used her weight to pull down until he was dead.

That stomach-churning performance won her Gaddafi’s attention, and Ben Amer rose to become powerful, rich and twice mayor of Benghazi. It also earned her the enduring hatred of many in a city long viewed by the regime as riddled with subversion, where she is spoken of with the same depth of loathing and fear as the dictator.

When the revolution erupted in Benghazi last month, a crowd descended on Ben Amer’s sprawling white mansion and, on discovering that she was out of the city, burned it to the ground.

“If we lose, Huda Ben Amer will hang all of us,” said Walid Malak, an engineer turned revolutionary who has armed himself with a Kalashnikov plundered from a military base abandoned by Gaddafi’s forces. “Everyone in Benghazi knows it’s them or us.”

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Arab League calls on UN to enforce no-fly zone over Libya

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Arab League on Saturday called on the United Nations Security Council to enforce a “no-fly zone” over Libyan airspace, marking a decisive diplomatic victory for rebel forces opposed to Moammar Gadhafi, the Libyan ruler.

The announcement will bolster calls by some European leaders to intervene in the violent confrontation between rebels and Col. Gadhafi’s military.

The U.S. and the European Union had deferred to the 22-member league of Arab nations to determine whether outside military forces should intervene.

The air superiority of forces loyal to Col. Gadhafi has helped tip the balance of power against the antigovernment uprising based in the eastern part of the country. On Saturday, government forces tightened their grip on the coastal road linking government-held territory to the rebel-controlled east, the Associated Press reported.

Col. Gadhafi’s forces all but routed rebels in the coastal oil-refining city of Ras Lanuf earlier this week and completed their assault on Zawiya, a rebel stronghold west of Tripoli, Libya’s capital.

Deliberations will now go to the U.N. Security Council, where permanent members China and Russia are thought to oppose the proposed no-fly zone.

Abdel Hafeez Goga, the deputy head of the Benghazi-based provisional rebel government, the Transitional National Council, praised the Arab League decision.

“We welcome and salute their decision and look at it as a step forward to the imposition of no-fly-zone imposition,” he told a news conference in Benghazi.

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Libya: fear of collapse — ‘we need a no-fly zone’

Jon Lee Anderson writes:

Yesterday, as the government appeared to take control of the western city of Zawiya, Seif al-Islam Qaddafi made a public vow that was extensively texted and retweeted in Libya:

Hear it now, I have only two words for our brothers and sisters in the east: We’re coming.

A Libyan friend reached me by cell phone from Benghazi to ask how things were; people there had heard the news of the crumbling front line and were growing worried, he said. He mentioned the threats made by Seif Qaddafi yesterday. For the first time, it seems, people in “liberated” Libya were beginning to wonder if their freedom was to be short-lived, and if they might soon see Qaddafi’s troops attacking them in Benghazi itself.
There were far fewer reporters and photographers at the front today. We learned that rebel authorities had set up a roadblock outside the city of Ajdabiya—the last before Benghazi—to prevent them from coming to the front. A dozen of us had stayed the night in Brega, however, and were able to reach the front line, where we were immediately accosted by fighters who asked us not to take photographs of them. Zaid, a civil engineer who had accompanied me to the front line from Benghazi, explained: “They believe that the images—especially on television—are helping Qaddafi to find targets to attack.” As the day wore on, though, the fighters’ wariness wore off, and once again they were coming up to anyone who looked foreign to wave “V” signs in front of camera lenses and declare, “Qaddafi majnoun“—crazy—“Where is America?” and “Tell Obama to do something; why hasn’t he done anything? We need a no-fly zone.”

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Wesley Clark: Libya isn’t worth helping — they don’t have enough oil

Retired US Army general and NATO’s former supreme allied commander in Europe, Wesley Clark, says Libya doesn’t provide the US with enough oil for the fate of the country to be regarded as a vital interest. Not only that, the US is busy helping democracy movements in Iraq and Afghanistan!

In 2001, when the United States went into Afghanistan, it was clear that we had to strike back after the attacks of Sept. 11. And we’re still there, despite all the ambiguities and difficulties, because we have a vital interest in combating al-Qaeda and similar terrorist groups there and across the border in Pakistan.

How do we apply this test to Libya? Protecting access to oil supplies has become a vital interest, but Libya doesn’t sell much oil to the United States, and what has been cut off is apparently being replaced by Saudi production. Other national interests are more complex. Of course, we want to support democratic movements in the region, but we have two such operations already underway – in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then there are the humanitarian concerns. It is hard to stand by as innocent people are caught up in violence, but that’s what we did when civil wars in Africa killed several million and when fighting in Darfur killed hundreds of thousands. So far, the violence in Libya is not significant in comparison. Maybe we could earn a cheap “victory,” but, on whatever basis we intervene, it would become the United States vs. Gaddafi, and we would be committed to fight to his finish. That could entail a substantial ground operation, some casualties and an extended post-conflict peacekeeping presence.

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Why Libya matters

A reader here comments:

I have great respect for you and your site but find myself dumbfounded by your enlisting Leon Wieseltier in your campaign to impose (or as you would say “respond to the rebels’ pleas”) a NFZ [no-fly zone] in Libya. The right or wrong of such a move is highly debatable. I for one feel no honest observer of the last twenty years of US/NATO interventions can see much wisdom or efficacy in such action even with the possibility (by no means assured) of it bringing about the desired outcome of rebel (who exactly?) success and the tyrant’s fall. Wieseltier, a deluded apologist for extreme violence (Iraq, Bosnia and where else?) shows his true “humanitarian intervention” colors by solemnly citing the awful Samantha Powers. Her “sad” (for reasons other than those he cites) book “A Problem From Hell” the much lauded whitewash of U.S. slaughter (by simply ignoring it) is the Bible used by the Humanitarian Interventionists to justify violence they -liberals- wish to unleash. One of several major lies Powers propagates is the fiction that the US “stood idly by” in Rwanda when in fact it was very much involved with Kagame and his invasion of Rwanda (to this day supporting his murderous rampages in DRC). If you’re going to insist that US/NATO –responsible for some of the most grievous violations of international law resulting in the deaths of millions of innocent civilians– bomb (see Sec Def Gates) Libya I would respectfully suggest you don’t let neo-con hacks like Wieseltier make your case for you.

I can’t see why you think the US would magically change its spots after decades of murderous policies and merely float above Libya like some guardian angel, do its NFZ thing, make things safe for Libyan democracy and then turn around and fly off into the sunset. Even if the US were to morph into an egalitarian and neutral police force devoid of its mighty imperial baggage the proposed NFZ would be fraught with unnecessary risk of disaster for the Libyan people themselves. No such use of power has ever been so clinically used without serious consequences in the form of entanglements and debts owed not to mention the usual unforeseen tangential horrors of war all highly probable and predictable even if it didn’t involve the players and history in this instance. Powerful state actors are not designed to do work free of charge. The idea that the US can use military force in Libya without further destabilizing the region seems ludicrous to me.

My response:

You refer to my “campaign to impose (or as you would say ‘respond to the rebels’ pleas’) a NFZ in Libya”.

Whether a no-fly zone is imposed disregarding the preference of rebels, or is enforced in response to rebel pleas, is an all-important distinction. I don’t support foreign intervention that would amount to the US or any other outside power simply trying to impose its will on Libya. Neither do I see any evidence that such a move is on the cards. The idea that the US is itching to involve itself in another imperial adventure implies that the US has learned nothing from Iraq.

When Obama says we are slowly tightening the noose on Gaddafi, the operative word is not “noose” — it’s “slowly”. However much he and other Western leaders might profess an interest in seeing Gaddafi ousted, their primary interest is in seeing him restrain his brutality just enough that the outside powers don’t get drawn in.

Note that Obama said the US would stand up for “defenseless civilians” in Libya. In other words, they can’t expect any help from the US unless they stop fighting. That’s not much of an offer to those fighters now retreating from Ras Lanuf. In fact, it’s an invitation for Gaddafi to retake Brenghazi. If its residents try to defend their stronghold, they won’t be defenseless civilians. But if they lay down their weapons, Gaddafi can reassert control without a fight.

Those who are now vehemently opposing a no-fly zone might stop to consider whether they are actually aiding and abetting in what might end up as an opened-ended process to isolate Gaddafi that ultimately causes more harm to the Libyan people than anyone else. For governments which like to structure foreign policies around easy-to-demonize enemies, Gaddafi is more useful remaining in power than in being overthrown.

Although there have been numerous reports in which rebel leaders and individual fighters are directly quoted appealing for swift implementation of a no-fly-zone, I have not seen a single statement in which rebels say they do not want a no-fly zone. There are plenty of statements saying they don’t want foreign troops on Libyan soil — I share their assumption that a no-fly zone will not be a precursor to an invasion simply because the US and NATO are indeed overstretched in Afghanistan. The Pentagon doesn’t want to trumpet its lack of capacity — it prefers to council caution.

If I cite Wieseltier or anyone else, that doesn’t mean I’m endorsing everything that individual has ever written. I trust that the readers here have enough critical intelligence to evaluate statements based on their substance and not the hallowed or hollow authority of the source.

Wieseltier says the White House is “so haunted by past Arab anger at American action in the Middle East that it cannot recognize present Arab anger at American inaction in the Middle East.” The validity of that statement doesn’t hinge on who wrote it. The frustration on the ground in Libya which Wieseltier references from a New York Times report is also evident in this statement from Salem Abdel Wahad, a 30-year-old Libyan rebel soldier:

We find one thing strange: the position of the United states. It’s impossible that the U.S. would not have imposed a no-fly zone, impossible, unless they have some agreement with Gaddafi against the Libyan people.

You say “The idea that the US can use military force in Libya without further destabilizing the region seems ludicrous”. Maybe. But as the Arab democratic revolution develops, we either accept and even dare I say celebrate the fact that this is a hugely destabilizing process, or we say that in the interests of regional stability, it would be much better if these angry Arabs temper their desire for political freedom.

The Arab democratic revolution is bad for America — at least in the short term. It’s pushing up gas prices and it’s harming the economy — and most Americans don’t really give a shit about whether Libyans or pretty much anyone else have democratic freedoms or live under oppression. The same kind of myopic self-interest applies to the US government. So, trying to build up public pressure in support of foreign assistance to Libya’s rebels is not about appealing to idealistic instincts where they are unlikely to be found. It’s about trying to enlist support for a just cause even if that support comes tainted with a bundle of dubious interests.

The fact that I support calls for a NFZ does not mean that I believe this would necessarily decisively tip the balance in the rebels’ favor, but if implemented fast enough it could place an urgently needed obstacle on Gaddafi’s path to victory and give the rebels some breathing space. This is and will remain their fight.

If Libyans could secure their freedom through non-violent protests, Gaddafi would already have been toppled. But since he chose to use violence to maintain his rule, those who had already risen up against him were left with a choice: be rounded up and executed or imprisoned, or to fight for their lives. I think they made the right choice and that their fight is worthy of support by anyone who opposes oppression. Those who believe that stability should be our overriding concern can continue watching and hoping that things quieten down soon. But have no doubt, if Gaddafi holds on, autocratic rulers across the region will have taken note that the West remains, as it has long been, a willing partner in rule by force — even as we profess our love of democracy.

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The fight for Libya

A fighter cried after an airstrike by government forces near the oil refinery in Ras Lanuf.

The New York Times reports:

Only days ago, rebels were boldly promising to march on Surt, Colonel Qaddafi’s hometown, then on to Tripoli, where opposition leaders predicted its residents would rise up. But the week has witnessed a series of setbacks, with a punishing government assault on Zawiyah, near the capital, and a reversal of fortunes in towns near Ras Lanuf, whose refinery makes it a strategic economic prize in a country blessed with vast oil reserves.

There was a growing sense among the opposition, echoed by leaders in opposition-held Benghazi and rebels on the front, that they could not single-handedly defeat Colonel Qaddafi’s forces.

“We can’t prevail unless there’s a no-fly zone,” said Anis Mabrouk, a 35-year-old fighter. “Give us the cover, and we’ll go all the way to Tripoli and kill him.”

That seemed unlikely, though. Even without warplanes, Colonel Qaddafi’s government could still marshal far superior tanks, armor and artillery, along with the finances and organization to prosecute a counteroffensive.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

President Obama signaled Friday that the U.S. military might intervene in Libya at the point that “defenseless civilians” are under attack by forces loyal to Col. Moammar Kadafi, but said even then he would weigh the costs of sending American personnel and carefully consider whether such an operation would be “sustainable.”

In a news conference at the White House, Obama pointedly declined to endorse a view expressed by his director of national intelligence, James Clapper, who testified before Congress this week that rebel forces probably will not be able to defeat Kadafi.

While Obama said the option of military force remains on the table, he made it clear he does not think the situation merits it yet. He said he would want to avoid “defenseless civilians who were massacred by Kadafi’s forces,” repeating past massacres in the Balkans and Rwanda.

Gaddafi has already likened his onslaught on his own population to Israel’s war on Gaza — a war President-elect Obama watched in silence — so perhaps he’ll restrain himself from bombing Benghazi and simply place the city under siege. He can be reasonably confident he’ll suffer no more than a verbal rebuke from Obama, since a massacre in slow motion won’t really look like a massacre.

Leon Wieseltier writes:

Darkness is descending on the Libyan struggle for freedom, and we are helping to lower it. While the various secretaries were articulating their abdications, Qaddafi was committing a slaughter in Zawiyah and employing his monopoly of the skies to drive the rebels out of Ras Lanuf. An eastern offensive is clearly imminent. (This is not a civil war. This is a war by a dictator upon his people. There is no other half of the Libyan population fighting for Qaddafi.) All this, of course, affects the sensitivities of the Libyan freedom fighters. “We’re waiting for the Americans to follow,” a rebel spokesman bitterly told Anthony Shadid and David Kirkpatrick of The New York Times about Sarkozy’s splendid decision to recognize the Libyan provisional government. (Morally America now lags behind France!) Shadid and Kirkpatrick also reported that “as NATO member nations met in Brussels to discuss options for Libya, the rebels cursed the United States and its allies for failing to impose a no-flight zone.” Why is the White House content to foment this variety of anti-Americanism? The answer is that it is so haunted by past Arab anger at American action in the Middle East that it cannot recognize present Arab anger at American inaction in the Middle East.

And the president? He declares that Qaddafi must go and that we will stand with the Libyan people, and then he does nothing. No, that’s not right. He consults and consults, and his staff works round the clock, and economic sanctions are instituted against the rampaging dictator who has tens of billions of dollars in cash. Obama is prepared to act, just not consequentially. He does not want the responsibility for any Arab outcome. He says they must do it for themselves. But they are doing it for themselves. They merely need help. And the help they need is easy for us to provide. (Jam their fucking communications.) And their cause is freedom, which is allegedly our cause. What they seek from Obama is an extended hand. What they are getting is a clenched fist. If Muammar Qaddafi takes Benghazi, it will be Barack Obama’s responsibility. That is what it means to be the American president. The American president cannot but affect the outcome. That is his burden and his privilege. He has the power to stop such an atrocity, so if the atrocity is not stopped it will be because he chose not to use his power. Perhaps that is why Obama has been telling people, rather tastelessly, that it would be easier to be the president of China. Obama will not be rushed. He is a man of the long game. But the Libyan struggle for freedom, and the mission of rescue, is a short game. That is the temporality of such circumstances. If you do not act swiftly, you have misunderstood the situation. Delay means disaster. Does Obama have any idea of what Qaddafi’s victory will mean for the region and its awakening?

We have flinched this way before. For many days I have had a sickening 1992–1995 feeling. Consider these sentences, from a book I lugubriously took off my shelf: “Why does the United States stand so idly by? The most common answer is, ‘We didn’t know.’ This is not true. … A second response to the question of why the United States did so little is that it could not have done much to stop the horrors. [But] the only way to ascertain the consequences of U.S. diplomatic, economic, or military measures would have been to undertake them. … If anything testifies to the U.S. capacity for influence, it is the extent to which the perpetrators kept an eye trained on Washington and other Western capitals as they decided how to proceed. … The real reason the United States did not do what it could and should have done to stop genocide was not a lack of knowledge or influence but a lack of will. Simply put, American leaders did not act because they did not want to.” The Libyan calamity is not genocide, but genocide is not the only horror that has a claim on American agency. I have taken those wise sentences from “A Problem from Hell,” Samantha Power’s sad, great study of earlier American failures to act against mass-murdering tyrants. Is Obama now writing his own chapter in that story? Why do we not still remember that story? It is disgusting, as the Libyan rebels are driven further and further back, to learn that we must discover it all over again.

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