Libya's War, History's Shadow

The Libya war is shifting from the status of an internal to an international conflict, as western forces degrade Libya's air-defences and general ability to deliver air-power. A campaign that external pagestartedcall_made with French air-raids against troops and armor of the Muammar Gaddafi regime advancing on the eastern city of Benghazi on 19 March 2011 has continued with air- and missile-attacks against a wider set of Libyan naval and army targets.

These vigorous attacks from the three leading members of the coalition - France, the United States, and Britain - have not yet disabled the external pageGaddafi regimecall_made or prevented it from threatening some of the rebel areas, notably the town of Misrata to the external pageeastcall_made of Tripoli.

The coalition forces have now begun the more complex task of trying to target regime forces operating in urban areas. The likely pattern is that loyalist external pagesoldierscall_made will quickly learn how to avoid exposure to attack, with many potential operations against them curtailed to external pageavoidcall_made civilian casualties.

It is already apparent that early expectations of sudden regime collapse among some western analysts have proved unfounded. This outcome - one that external pageNicolas Sarkozycall_made, David Cameron and Barack Obama must devoutly wish for - is still external pagepossiblecall_made. But it is safer to assume that Gaddafi will survive for some external pageweekscall_made and possibly much longer.

Moreover, even the leader's flight into exile (a possibility external pagefloatedcall_made both by Britain's foreign secretary on 21 February, and external pagebycall_madethe US secretary of state on 23 March) may not lead to wholesale regime implosion: the rebel forces are quite external pageweakcall_made, and tens of thousands of Libyans have a vested interest in defending a system built on autocracy and largesse over four decades.

The coalition's problems

The unusually robust United Nations Security Council external pagemandatecall_made for the coalition's operation means that the external pageLibyacall_made war differs greatly from that against Iraq in 2003. But even in these early days the multiple external pageproblemscall_made facing the coalition are evident.

Among them are the following:

• Dissent within Nato from Turkey, Germany and Italy, not least external pageovercall_made the desirability of Nato taking overall control

• The clear desire of the Obama administration to take a back-seat external pagerolecall_made, in terms both of military operations and overall leadership

• The cautious external pageattitudecall_made of Brazil, Italy and Germany in the UN Security Council debate, leading to their abstention

• The failure of Arab states to provide direct support - Qatar's two external pagewarplanescall_made and one transport aircraft are little more than symbolic

• The evident reluctance of the two key states adjoining Libya, Egypt and especially Algeria, to be engaged. Indeed, Algeria's external pagestancecall_made is of singular value to the Gaddafi regime.

The western mind

The next phase in the interlocking process of military combat, diplomatic positioning, and movement on the external pagegroundcall_made in Libya will become clearer in external pagecomingcall_made days, including after the coalition external pageconferencecall_made in London on 29 March.

Alongside it, much of the broader public debate about the war focuses on the persistent issue of western double-standards. This has at least three aspects: changing attitudes to Libya, approaches to human-rights violations being driven by self-interest, and an evasion of historical responsibilities.

The recent French and Italian support for Gaddafi's armed forces, and broader western external pageparticipationcall_made in the Tripoli external pagearms faircall_made in November 2010, are among many examples of the first. The lack of support for Arab protesters in (for example) Bahrain or external pageYemencall_made is evidence of the second, as is the condemnation of the shootings of demonstrators in Syria (a second-tier external pagemembercall_made of the George W Bush administration's "axis of evil").

It is notable here that the Bahraini royal elite's harsh external pagesuppressioncall_made of dissent is aided by direct paramilitary support from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - and that the armed forces of these three Gulf external pagestatescall_made have received substantial and lucrative support from the very countries now targeting Libya (see " external pageLibya, Bahrain, and the Arab springcall_made", 17 March 2011).

The contradiction here raises the third aspect of western double-standards, in that the spectacle of powerful states imposing their will on an Arab country (with, in the case of Nicolas Sarkozy at least, an element of external pagedomesticcall_made political calculation at work as well) suggests a failure to learn from a tarnished history of external pagecolonialcall_maderule and the attitudes that go with it (see Patrice de Beer, "external pageFrance, Europe, and the Arab maelstromcall_made", 9 March 2011).

The European control of most of the region for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the more recent experience of the US-led war in Iraq and external pagebackingcall_made for Israel, mean that strong suspicion of western policy in the middle east persists - even if sanctioned by a UN resolution, supported by a few Arab states, and undertaken against a external pagefigurecall_made as unpopular as Muammar Gaddafi. Moreover, the further from Washington, London and Paris is the view of events the more rooted is the condemnation (see " external pageLibya: the view from where you arecall_made", 21 March 2011).

The other's view

Libya in 2011 is not Iraq in 2003, though there are comparable features (of which the fact that the wars were launched a day apart in their respective years is the least). Perhaps an incident that took place at the very end of the first Gulf external pagewarcall_made, in February 1991, holds out the darkest warning for the new western coalition.

The late drama in the United States-led war to eject Saddam Hussein's forces from external pageKuwaitcall_made involved what American observers called a "turkey-shoot" by aircraft and helicopter-gunships of vast numbers of Iraqi soldiers fleeing from Kuwait on Highway 80 across Mutla ridge. The destruction was total as thousands of vehicles were external pagecaughtcall_made in the open; the Iraqis killed probably numbered in the thousands (see "external pageThe myth of a clean war - and its real motivecall_made", 16 March 2003).

Any embarrassment of western leaders was muted: a war external pageagainstcall_made an illegal invasion had been won, Egyptian and Syrian forces had played a small part, the messy aftermath of Shi'a uprising and Kurdish flight was still to come. Yet the extent of the carnage, a stark reminder of the sheer power of the United States and its European partners, had a lasting impact across the Middle East.

The French attacks on Libyan army columns south of Benghazi on 19 March were very different in context and scale. They may well have external pagesavedcall_made many lives in Benghazi, and for that alone will appear to many far more justified than Mutla ridge. But they also left long chains of burned-out trucks, tanks and artillery-pieces, as well as many charred external pagebodiescall_made; graphic images of this death and destruction were shown on middle-eastern TV channels.

The impact of a single incident cannot be precisely measured. But whatever the rightness of the Libyan war or the strength of the United Nations sanction, an attack of this kind is also a demonstration of the hard external pagestrengthcall_made of western states which elsewhere give military external pageaidcall_made to brutal regimes whose atrocities they fail to condemn.

Many people across the "greater Middle East", including those active in the Arab external pageawakeningcall_made of 2011, are provoked to great anger by this mix of power, violence, and hypocrisy. The feeling, with strong foundations in history, may be largely beyond the West's grasp. All the more reason for the West to try to understand it.