Straining The Imagination

France and Britain agitated forcefully for intervention in Libya. Italy offered its air bases. The United States remained hesitant of embroiling itself once again in a conflict pitting it against a Muslim country. It is heavily mired down in Afghanistan and still involved in Iraq. Both of which arenas have garnered it hostility in the Arab world, as an occupier of Arab land. All Western countries are garishly brushed with the imperialist colours of petroleum greed.

Moammar Gadhafi went a bit too far in his arrogant incitement of fear and misgivings threatening the rebels in his country, promising that they would not live to see the light of another day once his troops retook the cities the rebels had taken. His is famously a scorched-earth mentality. The rebels had full knowledge of his vicious intentions, which spurred them on to battle more deliriously determinedly with the intention of giving as good as they prepared themselves to get.

They were, all the while, awaiting rescue by the West. Their initial assertions that they wanted a safe sky and nothing more. That they would not tolerate foreign boots on their ground, in anticipation that they would lose their sovereignty by an influx of troops they had no stomach to receive. The pride in their capabilities as a fighting force to the fore. And the Arab and Muslim disgust with the presence of U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan is manifest and deeply entrenched.

But when there was no response reflecting the intention to act on their behalf, only brave words of inspiration that the world was watching and hoping for their victory, matched by government forces managing to take the upper hand, desperation overcame caution. Still, not much could be done...until the Gulf States managed to convince the Arab League that a no-fly zone was desperately needed lest Gadhafi, who always offended everyone, succeed in obliterating the rebel alliance in a sea of blood.

The League took it upon itself to authorize the United Nations to take all necessary measures. Which went quite a bit further, as it happened than merely instituting a no-fly zone, which in and of itself would have been a declaration of war. The resolution that was passed by a vote of 10, with no dissenting votes, just 5 abstentions, went further, much further. Including a no-drive zone, a maritime exclusion zone, and the disruption of official Libyan communications.

Then began the almost immediate response with French and British jets bombing Libyan armoured vehicles and artillery, and U.S. missiles being fired from offshore ships in the Mediterranean. And then the Arab League suffering grave misgivings, denying that this was what they wanted when they asked the UN to intervene. It seems unlikely that any of the Arab states, like Egypt or Saudi Arabia will become involved.

Particularly with their own problems of protests against their traditional rule with their populations seeking more freedoms and fewer authoritarian governments. And with that unrest within their own borders, concerns that their having become involved in the affairs of another Arab country while affairs within their own have not been settled they would not want to be viewed as becoming increasingly involved with the United States' interests.

In short, it is the typical Arab situation, waffling and weaving and wavering; exhorting on the one hand, denying on the other. And the Arab League has no wish to become involved in a situation whose longevity no one can predict. With a possibility that tribal antipathies within Libya could even divide the country and a prolonged civil war ensue. Which would trap Western powers already committed to the rebel cause.

Who knows, in the end, whether the bloody tyrant that will be replaced will have his place taken by someone equally horrendous, or, straining the imagination, even worse? And who might have imagined all this occurring when the new year of 2011 bade adieu to 2010?