Monday, March 21, 2011

EDITORIAL

Moammar Gadhafi likes his conspiracy theories. When the youth of Benghazi and other eastern Libyan cities were protesting against his monolithic four-decade rule, Gadhafi believed them to be drugged. When the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, the colonel deemed it part of a Western plot to recolonize former outposts. The man accused Israel of assassinating Kennedy.

The international airstrikes currently pounding Libya’s military assets, bringing further danger to a country already ravaged by fixation with power, have thrown up another opportunity for Gadhafi to churn out one more outlandish hypothesis about how a Western, imperialist plot aims to overthrow the self-proclaimed leader of Africa.

With Arab countries largely supporting Operation Odyssey Dawn, and with some such as Qatar and the UAE participating in air raids on Gadhafi targets, it seems the man who claimed Al-Qaeda was behind the Libyan uprising will have to reach elsewhere for his harebrained and self-pitying proclamations.

The passing of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 is to be welcomed, but not unconditionally. The organization needs to ensure it sees the job through to its conclusion. Half-measures will only confuse the situation and further endanger civilians. A Sudan-style partition, with the rebel held east cleaved from Gadhafi’s more loyal west, is unconscionable, as is any consideration of a ground invasion.

If further bloodshed is spared by forcing Gadhafi into hiding or surrender, the Security Council can consider their intervention – itself a highly divisive issue – as the right choice in the nick of time.

The operation is not a simple one. The logistics of lining up strategic targets, in some cases close to civilian areas, when the man in the crosshairs clearly has no qualms in using innocent Libyans as human shields are mind-boggling. With controversial interference comes heightened scrutiny. The world will be watching the accuracy of coalition jets closely. Now is not the time to repeat the supposed inaccuracy of “friendly fire” incidents or botched drone attacks.

The intervention offers a template with the clout to dissuade megalomania in other world dictators. If the prospect of a downtrodden populace losing their trepidation doesn’t strike fear into autocrats’ hearts, the possibility of an international military attack just might dissuade tyrannical tendencies.

Other leaders are killing their own civilians. Gadhafi may be grabbing the most headlines, but despots throughout the region and further afield are sanctioning state-sponsored murder. The U.N. cannot authorize no-fly zones over all such countries, but consistency is needed. Operation Odyssey Dawn has set a precedent it is to be hoped needs no repeating.