Without intervention, Gaddafi will triumph in Libya

Tankus

If he does , he will get medieval on the population .....

Foreign media may have signed a few death warrants

Ryan

Rubbish!

"Protect" people from Gadaffi?
We are oil thirsty and that's all..
If we're really that caring, why
are we not "protecting" people in Zimbabwe and the Ivory coast.

Gadaffi is simply defending his regime against terror that was orchestrated by Washington and it's oil thirsty friends.

We the west has no sense of guilt anymore,
Shame on anyone who belief we're "protecting" people.

Fergus Pickering

Isn't that what THE FOOL CAMERON said some days ago. Good Heavens, was he right?

porkbelly

And the inescapable lesson will be drawn that if you are an anti-American, anti-British dictator you will survive; if you make the mistake of being their ally you will fall. I wonder of Iran, Syria, the North Koreans, et al are drawing the same conclusion? Ya think?

Aaron Ellis

How would a no-fly zone ensure Gaddafi's defeat? The fighting, and the killing, is happening on the ground; air attack aren't what is winning him the conflict.

But say we set up a no-fly ('we' is misleading, because only the Americans can do it effectively), and Gaddafi succeeds, what then? When do we lift a no-fly?

Jon

The problem is in my opinion of course, is that even if the West were to intervene successfully and aid the rebels in driving out this dictator the West would still lose. Look at Afgan and Iraq interventions. In both cases our interventions have only increased the hatred of the West. We went in with good intentions, driving out horrible governments. And our thanks for this is ill treatment by both government we installed and 100 years of jihad to look forward to. Yes, it's terrible what he is doing and is likely to do as victor in Lybia. But frankly I don't see how the West will benefit in Lybia if we decide to spend our money and lives to help them. Is this selfish? Yes... probably so. But after enough slaps in the faces I'm afraid that's how I feel.

Martin

I'm afraid you're right. I am watching ashamed how the world looks on when this mass murderer uses the rockets, fighter jets, tanks and grenades which it sold him without any remorse against the libyan people. If he comes out victorious than I think the UN and security council have failed in such an enormous way that the continuation of these bodies in this form should be called into question.

Dominic

Analogy: A big guy watches a small guy beating up a tiny guy. The big guy says I won't stop the small guy unless my lawyer says it's okay. If my lawyer says it's okay I won't stop him unless everyone else watching agrees that I should. If they do agree I still think the tiny guy should prove that he needs my help. If he does and he's still alive by that time then... okay.

DC

A morally difficult but cheap (financially and in human terms) solution would be for the international community to pay off the mercenaries. Ok there are tribes and individuals loyal to Gadaffi but pay the majority of his support to turn in their weapons and the balance could be tipped with no western boots on the ground or planes in the air.

TrevorsDen

If Gadaffi survives then we are back to square one.

Deja vu all over again. Libya an outcast state. And now that the genie is out of the bottle there will have to be even more oppression than before.

Once the rebellion began there was no possibility of supporting Gadaffi and once he stated killing his own people then it becomes difficult to be neutral.
France seems to be making a big jump to support the rebels.

The minimum intervention would seem to be to keep the east of the country intact. Is there likely to be special forces intervention soon?
Sadly Russian and Chinese intransigence may stop the UN from doing its job.

Seasurfer1

A major point to consider is that he will exact retribution against Britain and its Oil Interests,-- consequential of the belligerence shown to him by the British Government.
He will recognise the weakness in the foreign office in believing he was fleeing to Venezeula, the detainment of the worlds crack troops - the SAS making an SOS, and the Fly BE Maybe Notbe policy flagwaved by the British Gov.
This whole saga is one big embarrassment and shows the weakness in Camerons Government.

Abbas

Very True if he wins, which I doubt very much, the people have said thier word and will rather all die fighting than submit to the slaughter.
This man is another Hitler, Franco and other blood thirsty rulers,
After All the Libyan people blame the west and Russia for providing this man the arms and the tools to commit such crimes, when all the world knew that he is the man who was the Terorrists freen bank. you trusted him we did not, he killed 1200 in prison in cold blood, we Libyans will never forigive him nor his bandits for what they have done,

Charles Reid

It seems that finally someone is bringing this distinct possibility to light, even though someone who says the same in Washington is being condemned for it.
Now, this possibility brings to light the question I have been posing for over a week and which all politicians have stuck their heads in the sand over--what do we do if Ghadafi prevails and what do we do if, as the blog says, he goes on a revenge spree?
My fear is that this is the West was aware of this and it is the exact reason they have been playing their famous--"let's wait and see" sit on the fence game.
It was most notable that first the EU and now Hague are carefully stating that any meetings with the insurgents does not imply any recognition of their legitimacy.
The odd man out in all this seems to be Sarkosky.

charles hercock

Why does everyone think it is our problem?
There are more wicked regimes and we say nothing
How about a no fly zone over Burma?
No, it is again the hypocrisy of oil, as in Kuwait and as in Iraq
Every week the beginning of PMQ's empashises the price we pay from sticking our noses in where no-one wants us

Baron

what the farting colonel may do in-house may indeed be awful, what he may do to his former ‘friends’ offshore doesn’t bear thinking about what with PanAm still in the memory and stuff.

have said it before, nobody seems interested. A single Pershing II medium range missile would do wonders sorting things out, trust me, I know, I’ve checked.

John HW

This would be a truly terrible outcome and I agree that it is looking increasingly likely. Consideration of any moral obligation to intervene is however a fraught and complex subject with Rwanda and Iraq bearing ample testament to the dangers of both non-action and action. Whatever we decide to do will be wrong and fiercely criticised.

My own view is that craven hand wringing while this murderous tyrant goes on a bloody and protracted rampage of revenge is both the likeliest option and the worst.

daniel maris

Libya is a lot closer to the European heartland than Burma and Libya's oil production isn't that vital. Plus, we're not talking China, this is somewhere we can have an influence.

Let's recognise the Benghazi government as teh legitimate government and proceed accordingly. First a no fly zone and then full military support for the Benghazi government.

Andrewjk

Please! Let's get some military support into Bengazi quickly!

Fex Urbis

Hope that cunt Blair is happy now.

Cogito Ergosum

The only way to impose our will is to invade.

With what, you might ask, as Stalin famously asked of the Pope.

yank

Sounds like you got it all figured out Mr. maris.

So go grab your rifle and FO over there and get in the fight, and put your blood where your mouth is.

Weird

I don't understand why the insurgency, there is no other name for it, is more legitimate than the head of state we were happy to sell weapons to.

Someone is fighting for Gadaffi. If we were to back the insurgency then who is to say they won't slaughter Gadaffi's tribe once they have the upper hand.

What I have not seen is clarity on the demographics.

Many states have deployed military force to quell armed rebellions, I dare say we would too. Libya seems to me to be a TV war. The messages coming out at the moment are bizarrely mixed. By the way, we are still at war in Afghanistan.

justathought

Gaddafi's regime showed that it was weak from day 1 when he had to pay mercenaries from Africa because his own army was lacking. The reality is he is holed up in a bunker and does not have the logistics or manpower to travel 700 miles over land to the east.

It is true that there have been deaths from the limited air raids but compared to the hundreds that were killed by Mubaraks regime the numbers are thankfully low. It is not in Gaddafi's interest to bomb his own oil facilities.

By freezing his assets his ability to finance his forces is limited and as time goes on they will desert him. On balance I think that the time taken to get the necessary agreement before a no fly zone implementation is well spent.

Simon Mennie

Damned if we do and damned if we don't.There has been an underestimation on all sides of the durability of the regime which realistically can only now be toppled by outside i.e largely American military intervention which simply isn't going to hsppen.Some advocate limited missile attacks on the regime but it takes just one set of faulty coordinates leading to heavy civilian casualties and it's game over.This was tried in Iraq during the invasion to decapitate the late dictatorship there,I seem to recall, but without success.For now it looks like we are going to end up with a North African North Korea sitting on a lot of oil which will be bought by the Chinese.

Baron

Fex Urbis, sir, if it were up to me, the bottle of Bollinger would be on its way.

yank

You do gotta hand it to the frogs though, the opportunistic bastards. They're gettin' in early. The rosboefs and BP had it all locked up with Khadaffi, but now here come the frogs upsetting the applecart. Now imagine if this rebel group does take over a chunk of that oil production, or ALL of it. BP is then out in the cold, or out in the desert sand, or whatever. And Total Fina or whoever the frog outfit is these days gets it all, inshallah DeGaulle and merci buttercups.

Thinking along those lines, not hard to see why Dave ordered up the blind man's bluff 007 mission, eh?

Fatbloke on tour

JustaWhat @ 11.13

MG has enough organic support to be all too credible at the moment. Add in his black african "friends" and the fence sitters who will wave the flag of the winner and he looks pretty secure to me.

Look at the map to see what the medium term goal is, all the oil installations on his side of the UN DMZ.

He does not need to travel 700 miles.
He builds a wall around Misrata making sure the steel plant is on his side.

He then pushes on across the desert to be 50Km from Benghazi and then buys the best 155mm heavy stuff money can buy or failing that a cheap PRK cheap knock off copy and waits for the UN to start feeding his enemies.

He has 99% of the oil.
He has 90% of the country
He has 70% of the population
He has 20% of the troublemakers.

We need oil and he needs cash.
Consequently match made in hell.

Unless a miracle happens, the Burton's commandos making up the rebel fighting force are not going to win.

The NFZ is playing to the gallery.
The best we can hope for is a ceasefire and a partition to stop "him and a few of his homeboys getting medieval with the rebels posteriors". That and the fact that if anyone wins outright the refugee crisis will be a nightmare for the EU to deal with.

What MG does in the long term will be interesting as he is down to the dregs when it comes to friends that have stood by him ...

... being left with only BP and TB taking your calls is not where you would want to be.

As always money talks and the contrast between Libya and Tunisia / Egypt could lead to tensions in many Arab countries.

The elite may hate him but MG has credibility with the plebs.

Iran / Syria / Libya with a common agenda could make things very interesting.

Please note all this is just the warm up act for the fun in the sun in SA today.

West Asia Top Dog - Semi final first leg:

Royal family (SA) vs Shiite Proxies (Iran)

Frank Sutton

"Without intervention, Gaddafi will triumph in Libya"

Without insurrection, the EU will triumph in England

Damir Susnjar

What strikes me is how Britain and the U.S. perceive the no-fly zone as a favour to the Libyan rebels. Hello realpolitik, this is a very unstable guy who has in the past bombed your discos, airplanes and airports. He may have surprised us all by renouncing terrorism awhile back, but he is just as likely to embrace it anew, and with a vengeance, if he survives. And he’s gonna want revenge for all those asset freezes and sanctions. Take this perfect chance to get rid of “the mad dog” now. Justify it as the “Lockerbie Vindication”, but make no mistake, it is in your national interest, as well as the Libyan peoples’ to make it impossible for Ghaddafi to hurt more innocents.

Professor Bongo

With one bunch of misogynist antisemites verses another bunch of misogynist antsemites why support either.

Just let them get on with it.

vulture

@fergus pickering

no, the fool Cameron was not right - he couldn't have been more wrong.

to threaten your enemies with force you don't possess looks the height of foolishness to me.

and when Ghadaffi wins, do you think he will be best pleased with the guy who called for his ousting - but did nothing to back it?

dave knows nothing abt foreign affairs or the Arab world. He knows less than his hero Blair, even. He should have kept that hen's arse of a mouth of his firmly shut an said and done nowt..

Perry

I think your tense is wrong.

Should read 'HAS' triumphed.

Boo

Simply put if you strike a snake, kill it. If you don't you will get nothing but poison.
After all the coaxing we have now dropped the guy, we cannot go back to a situation where he is still in power.

Jonathan Woolf

Can someone explain to me how, in the minds of the Guardian/BBC elite consensus, invading Iraq was wrong and illegal but imposing a no-fly zone on Libya is good and perfectly legitimate? A no-fly zone sounds easy and risk-free but as plenty of informed commentators have noted, it actually involves fighting an air war against the Libyan air force and bombing their airfields and anti-aircraft defences. Do all the armchair warriors really fancy seeing RAF or USAF pilots being shot down then executed live on YouTube? And on what basis will we declare war on Libya? And why wouldn't we apply the same logic to Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Russia, China and all the other governments that has used force against its citizens?

Ignoring all of that, what exactly would be the end-game in Libya? Haven't we learnt the hard way in Iraq and Afghanistan that you can't impose a liberal democracy by military action? Prolonging the current messy civil war by helping the rebels will probably just result in more people getting killed, tortured and maimed. Anyone remember the Marsh Arabs and Shia rebels of Iraq after the first Gulf war?

PayDirt

If ever there was a case of a guy needing to be taken out, this is it. It even trumps not having a followup plan.

oldtimer

No doubt there are opportunities for volunteers who want to fight in the Libyan civil war.

The UK government obviously does not have the capability to beat Ghadaffi. Nor do I believe it should order British servicemen to risk their lives doing so. Clinton correctly observes that military action by the international community to depose Ghadaffi means the USA paying the price in blood and treasure for the privilege. The trouble is, the USA has long since run out of treasure and, with a Presidential re-election campaign in the not too distant offing, Obama is in no hurry to pay the blood price either.

Hand wringing and empty threats like the NFZ will not remove Ghadaffi. The most practical things the international community can do are tighten its diplomatic and financial pressure as much as possible and covertly support assymetric war by the rebels against Ghadaffi. The long coast road between Tripoli and Benghazi offers endless opportunities for that as was demonstrated in WW2.

TomTom

Spiegel Magazine had a fun example of a no-fly zone in a country 4 times the size of Germany. It would require at least 200 planes. There are no US carriers near Libya. It would not affect helicopters of which Ghadaffi has 35. It would mean striking at air-defence systems and effectively going to war.

It would certainly encourage Shias looking to topple Saudi Arabia so then we could bomb Saudi defence installations.

It would be such a fun game to start a Thirty Years War in the Middle East and leave Iran to move in as in Iraq.

TrevorsDen

Reaction to the invasion of Iraq will mean any intervention in Libya will have to be based on the UN or be very covert indeed.

A stalemate will not help Gadaffi if he is blockaded. It won't help anyone else either, but any Gadaffi enclave will wither on the vine.
The mercenaries will not do much to curry favour with black Africa for the arabs.

Mr Wolfe, there was already a no fly zone operating over Iraq before the invasion and lefties supported that. Such a policy over Libya will test their theory, that it would have been sufficient in Iraq, to destruction.

yank

I think we should read through Fatbloke's post above, because it does appear to be a likely Khadaffi strategy, whether he can execute it or not (and I'm not sure he can).

The rebels need economic lifeblood and then have to defend it. If they can't, they might just as well negotiate with Khadaffi and get in the best UN oversight they can to the talks, and take whatever gains come out of that as are possible.

One thing's for certain, the days of the likes of Khadaffi sitting on that UN Human Rights Committee are over. We're going to see a push to clean up that mess. Cuba, the mullahs, Mugabe, Chavez and the rest can go to hell now... we'll let the Libyan rebels be the spokesmen... they can be the new Solzhynetsins. And if Cameron and Hague are "statesmen" as they seem to fancy themselves, and not just limp gits as they appear, they'll stand up and proclaim that from the mountaintops. They'll demand action here. They'll boycott that council if they don't see that action.

And as Fatbloke says, we all have to keep our powder dry, because the real concern here is in the Arabian Peninsula. That oil flow cannot be disrupted, and it is one of the West's strategic imperatives that action be taken if things go south there, right there, in the home of rock-and-roll islamofascism.

Like it or not, but realpolitik rules here, as always. In the real world, where competing ideals and goals are always in conflict, pushing "democracy" and sustaining global economy come into conflict, like it or not, and must be managed concurrently. Those who starve to death because of oil price spikes are just as dead as those dying in front of Khadaffi's tanks.

TomTom

"Mr Wolfe, there was already a no fly zone operating over Iraq before the invasion"

That's because there was no peace agreement following the war to liberate Kuwait.......and sanctions would NOT have been renewed by the Security Council so invasion was the only option to stop Saddam from winning hands down

Perry

Only just realised that all this talk about 'No Fly Zone' by the Heir to B. is rubbish.

We would have to ask to borrow a FRENCH aircraft carrier + planes.

They would not agree - because they would need a year or twos notice plus heavy penalty clauses if we got it mucky.

Best leave it to Baroness von A.