I don’t know what we – that is Britain/NATO/the West/Whoever – should do about Libya. But while I think Brothers Korski and Nelson make many valid points I’m not sure that the case for any kind of military action has yet been made persuasively. That doesn’t mean one must be happy to see Gaddafi blitzing the Libyan rebels, merely that the calls to do something or anything seem long on justified emotion but desperately short on practical application.
Andrew Rawnsley, for instance, asks “Are we content to let Colonel Gaddafi win?” But this is a false question. No, we are not content to let Gaddafi win but few, if any, of the measures proposed seem likely to stop the Mad Dog from destroying his enemies. We may not like the notion of Gaddafi’s victory but are we prepared to prevent it? Having read it three times I can confirm that Rawnsley’s column contains not a single recommendation for anything that might practically be done to halt the slaughter.
Because how far are you prepared to go? A No-Fly Zone sounds grand but it’s a half-way measure founded on what seems, alas, to be an aesthetic objection to Gaddafi’s use of aircraft to help assist his fightback. Are we really prepared to occupy the skies above Libya, monitoring what’s happening on the ground and acting as some kind of referee to ensure that while things might still get out of hand it’s important that the fight be not quite so one-sided as it might be absent a NFZ?
Does it really make a difference whether Gaddafi kills his enemies from the air or with tanks and artillery? This seems a distinction without much of a difference from the perspective of the rebels, even though it’s plainly a matter of some import to those favouring intervention. So, again, how far are you prepared to go? What kind of handicap do you want to give Gaddafi? And what if a NFZ has little obvious or immediate impact? What then? What is your maximum level of intervention? At what point do you hold up your hands and tell the rebels “Sorry, lads, but at least we tried”?
If it be done, ’tis best it be done properly. No-one can like what’s happening in Libya right now but who really believes a No-Fly Zone will be enough to dissuade Gaddafi? Quite. So then it’s airstrikes. And if that’s not enough then what comes next?
It is Libya’s bad luck, perhaps, that it is a country of little strategic importance. The impulse to do something is as natural as it is understandable but, please, at least tell us what that something might be and how far you or we are prepared to go. Failing to stop Gaddafi may, perhaps, “send a message” of some kind but so would ineffective intervention.
What is happening in Libya is ghastly but unless I’ve missed it – which is not impossible – I haven’t seen a case for intervention that marries morals with a practical course of action that might actually work and that’s not based on conscience-salving more than it is on interest or a considered measurement of what might be possible.
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