reflectivepundit

Iraq War Hawks Have No Right to Criticize Obama’s Libya Decision: Now France and/or Other Europeans Must Take the Lead

By Brigitte L. Nacos

It is astounding that many of the very Washington politicians that supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq are now criticizing Barack Obama for his decision to involve the U.S. military in the implementation of the UN sanctioned no-fly zone in Libya’s airspace and prevent the massacre of civilians by Muammar Gaddafi’s loyalists. After all, the involvement in the Libyan case is negligible compared to the long and costly and unjust Iraq War.

It is even stranger that one of the architects of the Iraq adventure, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, attacks President Obama for not determining the Libya mission before using military forces and risking peoples’ lives. This is the same man who knew full well that the justifications for the Iraq War were carefully manufactured lies and who rejected as unnecessary plans for the post-invasion phase in Iraq and thereby jeopardized the lives of many American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

Contrary to Iraq, the Libyan involvement is a humanitarian one. As Nicholas Kristof notes in today’s New York Times, “If not for this intervention, Libyan civilians would be dying on a huge scale.”

While few people inside and outside of Libya would shed tears if Gaddafi and his regime were to fall, nobody can be sure about the opposition and what would await Libyans if the rebels would prevail.

Nor is it certain that the no-fly zone alone will protect civilians in areas now under the control of Gaddafi’s opposition.

Whatever the case, it is now up to France and other Europeans as well as Arabs to take over the lead in the Libyan intervention.

The President has assured from the outset that America’s leading role in establishing the no-fly zone would be short term and that thereafter Europeans and Arabs would patrol the skies over Libya. He must stick to this position. The U.S. cannot afford to be involved for long in yet another military conflict beyond a minor supporting role.

If there is no agreement within NATO to take the lead, the French seem ready to step to the plate. President Nicolas Sarkozy was instrumental in pushing the UN to decide in favor of a no-fly zone. French planes were the first to bombard loyalist tanks moving towards cities held by the opposition and full of civilians.

Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the Upheaval in the Arab World

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Because the popular uprisings in several Arab autocracies and the fall of the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia occurred without any part by Al Qaeda or like-minded Jihadis, some experts on the Middle East and terrorism have suggested that the recent developments cast Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, and whatever else is left of Al Qaeda Central in the roles of irrelevant bystanders.

To be sure, Al Qaeda’s hallmark—a lethal mix of religious fanaticism and indiscriminate violence—was and is not the driving force in the protest movements sweeping the Arab world.Indeed, the contrast between non-violent protesters and violent government reactions was instrumental in the demise of the regimes and Egypt and Tunisia.  

But it is far too early to presume that Al Qaeda and its unholy mission are obsolete in the region and beyond.

In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood may well emerge as the most influential group in the government of the future and shed the mantle of non-violence that it adopted in response to brutal oppression.

In Yemen, with President Ali Abdullah Saleh trying to hold on to power, the influential cleric Sheikh Abdul Majid al-Zindani called for the establishment of an Islamic state. It is noteworthy that Al-Zindani was once bin Laden’s mentor and that Yemen today is home to the most activist Al Qaeda branch. Were his former mentor to succeed, this would certainly bolster bin Laden’s objectives in the Arabian Peninsula--although enemy number one remains the house of Saud in neighboring Saudi Arabia.

To free this particular region from its governments and their American and Western allies—the “occupiers” and “Crusaders”--was from the outset Osama bin Laden’s primary objective as well documented in his 1996 fatwa.

For Al Qaeda’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was tortured in Egyptian prisons for his oppositional activities years ago, the fall of Hosni Mubarak is not enough. Nor is the demise of the Tunisian regime of Ben Ali.