Africa

Home page

Africa

Libya is all about logistics now

15 April 2011 21:53 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Behind Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy’s statement on Libya lies desperation â€“ and an ominous mission creep, APA reports quoting â€œThe Guardianâ€.
Friday’s joint statement on Libya by David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama is significant in several ways. First, Obama â€“ having distanced himself from the Nato-led air strikes against Gaddafi’s forces â€“ has returned to the frontline and placed himself firmly in the campaign’s leading triumvirate. This is an eerie replay of historical events: from 1943â€“1951 the administration of Libya (which had been an Italian colony) was divided between France and Britain, with the US establishing a significant military base in the south. The US took economic advantage of the situation by continuing research into Libya’s suspected vast oil reserves, which the Italians had begun in the 1930s.
This replay is not coincidental: oil is a significant element in the current conflict too. The Obama administration’s return to the fray comes as the coalition campaign falters. Air strikes have not been able to reverse Gaddafi’s repossession of the key oil towns, Ras Lanuf and Brega. Nor have they prevented the current brutal siege of Misrata.
Gaddafi has long used Libya’s oil to manipulate the international community, playing small companies off against the multinational giants, and US organisations against European ones. When sanctions were lifted against Libya in 2003 â€“ largely thanks to Tony Blair’s efforts to bring Gaddafi in from the cold â€“ production was ramped up to match Iran’s 3m barrels a day, and 15 new exploration licences were auctioned, 11 of which went to US companies. The licences were expensive, the Libyan regime’s administrative demands were frustrating, and discoveries were disappointing. Then, at the end of last year, the state-owned Libyan National Oil Company flexed its muscles and announced it was not expecting to issue any new oil concession licences in 2011.
Last month, Gaddafi played the oil card in the current crisis, urging Russia, China and India (who all oppose the Nato intervention) to invest in Libya’s oil sector. For those who have intervened in Libya, both time and options are running out.
And so the third significant point about the statement: although UN resolution 1973 only allows for measures to protect the people of Libya, the triumvirate are now clearly intent on regime change. "Colonel Gaddafi must go, and go for good" has an ominous undertone. Talk of "the international criminal court rightly investigating" Gaddafi may prepare us for a kidnap operation by coalition agencies to remove him forcibly for prosecution.
Fourth, as the situation on the ground deteriorates into a civil war, the US has decided to back the motley revolutionary battalions of Islamists, liberals and rogue military units currently being controlled by self-styled leaders holed up on the 10th floor of the Sheraton hotel in Doha. Obama is concerned â€“ rightly, according to my sources â€“ that al-Qaida is involved: Algeria has warned that al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is active in the conflict.
What we see now is a classic case of mission creep. As the ethics of regime change become subsumed by logistics, it is clear that the only way any significant progress can be made against Gaddafi is by the introduction of ground troops to back up the rebel fighters. William Hague hinted that small units may be deployed when he said there would be "no large-scale use of ground force" and there has also been talk of using mercenaries.
Finally, the conflict in Libya has wider implications both regionally and diplomatically. The international community is polarising â€“ Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have all voiced their opposition to any kind of military intervention â€“ and the US wants to make it clear where it stands. In terms of the Arab spring, the west’s intervention has created a confusion that may prove crippling to what started out, in Tunisia and Egypt, as peaceful, popular uprisings.