The war that established no new doctrine By Simon Tisdall

THE Libyan war, which began in earnest in February and edged towards a ragged conclusion on Thursday in the dusty, blood-specked alleyways of Sirte, was, in its most hyperbolic aspect, a victory for democracy, freedom, and the Arab spring.

This is how the British foreign secretary, William Hague, who reported to the UK House of Commons in London on the Qadhafi regime`s death throes on Thursday, habitually chooses to portray the nine-month struggle to oust Libya`s dictator-in-residence since 1969 and his Addams family of murderous retainers.

This is the uplifting narrative that carries Washington`s blessing, despite Barack Obama`s initial, chronic ambivalence about the Nato intervention.

And this is why the British Conservative party strategists will do their utmost to present Libya as a triumph of British leadership abroad, and, more particularly, of the prime minister. The intervention was a success, they will say, and it was the prime minister`s success. Libya 2011 was David Cameron`s war.

British politicians have long understood, as does their Libya comrade-in-arms, France`s Nicolas Sarkozy, the value of a short, sharp, not-too-costly foreign war in boosting national amour propre and personal standing. But call him “Lucky Dave”. All the self-congratulation, deserved and undeserved, cannot hide the fact that Cameron`s war was a high-risk adventure, long on aspiration and desperately short on tactical aims, planning and material. The embarrassing arrest of a British special forces infiltration team early on had more than a touch of the amateur about it.

More broadly, Cameron and Sarkozy`s Libyan policy managed, in a few short months, to expose and magnify the conflicting political, military and diplomatic faultlines that render international interventions of this sort so materially hazardous, morally questionable, and financially fraught.

And now that military victory has supposedly been secured, as in the doom-laden case of the “fall of Kabul” in November 2001, new questions arise under the title: who will win the peace?

Rebels in eastern Libya started fighting Gaddafi`s forces in February after the arrest of a human rights activist, Fethi Tarbel, sparked riots in Benghazi. Calls for a no-fly zone to protect the rebel enclave, first voiced by Australia`s Kevin Rudd, were taken up at the UN despite Russian and Chinese misgivings. After the National Transitional Council (NTC) declared itself Libya`s sole representative government, and Gaddafi threatened to hunt them down and kill them “house by house, room by room”, the security council on March 17 authorised “all necessary measures” to shield civilians under its rarely activated “responsibility to protect” doctrine.

Arab League backing was crucial in ensuring the resolution passed. In effect, the league — many of whose leading members had old scores to settle with Gaddafi — had given unprecedented, unconditional support for western intervention in a Muslim country.

Nato started flying missions into Libya within days and, just as quickly, Arab League members began to get cold feet. But the mandate was in place, and was soon being very liberally interpreted, giving rise to cries of “mission creep”. To be given such latitude, with all the legal boxes ticked (unlike in Iraq), was Cameron`s first great piece of luck.

The Libyan intervention split Nato down the middle, with Germany in particular arguing it was dangerous and ill-advised, not least because of previous fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Obama administration, too, initially refused to get involved militarily.

Cameron`s second stroke of good fortune was to find in Sarkozy a man who, like him, was a relative lightweight in international affairs keen to make his mark as a matter of principle as well as politics.

France was only too happy to show that “European” militaries could act decisively on the world stage without the Americans. Like London, although this is fiercely denied, Paris had its eye on Libya`s oil, lucrative business contracts, and other potential spoils of war.

And Cameron stayed lucky as the Pentagon relented and provided vital logistical support to the Nato operation.

Having hastily thrown their lot in with the NTC`s irregular forces, Britain and other participating states could only look on, offering support from the air as street battles raged for key cities such as Misrata and, eventually, Tripoli.

All agreed that putting western military boots on the ground was out of the question. But at times, the rebel forces, despite a growing supply and training effort by the French and British, appeared disorganised and ineffective.

Meanwhile, the cost of British operations, put by the defence secretary, Liam Fox, at about GBP300m, was adding to the pressure on Cameron.

With the exception of Moussa Koussa, Libya`s foreign minister, who arrived in London in March, and one or two others, the predicted mass defections from the Gaddafi regime did not materialise.

Doubts began to grow about the staying power of the NTC leadership and, more disturbingly, the potential influence of radical Islamists opposed to western interests on a future Libyan government. Soon, American neoconservatives were suggesting Libya was being saved for Al Qaeda, and that the war was destabilising neighbouring, pro-western regimes in Algeria and Tunisia. It was not a big jump from these concerns to predictions that Libya, now belatedly revealed as a patchwork nation of rival tribal, clan, ethnic and religious affiliations, would fall apart, much as Iraq nearly did.

Worst of all, perhaps, as spring turned to summer, temperatures rose, and the holy month of Ramazan approached, Qadhafi remained on the loose, mocking the coalition and the rebels in radio broadcasts and vowing eternal defiance.

But Cameron`s luck held. An unexpectedly coherent rebel advance from the south triggered the sudden fall of Tripoli in August and the flight of Qadhafi`s family to Algeria. On Sept 13, the interim government chief, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, made his first speech in Tripoli and, two days later, Sarkozy and Cameron travelled to Benghazi and Tripoli.

It was not exactly a Roman triumph. But the television pictures of grateful pats on the back gladdened UK Conservative hearts. By now, Qadhafi was rumoured to be holed up deep in the southern desert.

With the imminent fall of Sirte, Cameron appears to have achieved the relatively swift victory that was, for him, after risking so much, the only acceptable political outcome.Cameron`s war in Libya was a one-off. It established no new doctrine. Rather, it set a limited post-Blair, post-Iraq precedent for selective, “do-able”, feelgood interventionism.

For the seriously oppressed peoples of Syria, Burma, Belarus, Zimbabwe and North Korea, for example, it was a meaningless exercise. And in the end, Cameron was lucky to get away with it.—Dawn/Guardian News Service

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/15/the-war-that-established-no-new-doctrine.html

Civil war in Syria? By Gwynne Dyer

BACK in 1989, when the communist regimes of Europe were tottering towards their end, almost every day somebody would say `There`s going to be a civil war.` And our job, as foreign journalists who allegedly had their finger on the pulse of events, was to say: `No, there won`t be.`

So most of us did say that, as if we actually knew. But the locals were pathetically grateful, and we turned out to be right.

It was just the same in South Africa in 1993-94. Another non-violent revolution was taking on another dictatorship with a long record of brutality, and once again most people who had lived their lives under its rule were convinced there would be a civil war. So we foreign journalists (or at least some of us) reassured them that there wouldn`t be, and again we turned out to be right.

Now it`s Syria`s turn, and yet again most of the people who live there fear that their non-violent revolution will end in civil war. It`s not my job to reassure them this time, because like most foreign journalists I can`t even get into the country, but in any case I would have no reassurance to offer. This time, it may well end in civil war. Like Iraq.

The Assad dynasty in Syria is neither better nor worse than Saddam Hussein`s regime was in Iraq. They had identical origins, as local branches of the same pan-Arab political movement, the Baath Party. They both depended on minorities for their core support: the Syrian Baathists on the 10 per cent Alawite (Shia) minority in that country, and the Iraqi Baathists on the 20 per cent of that country`s people who were Sunni Arabs.

They were both ruthless in crushing threats to their power. Hafez al-Assad`s troops killed up to 40,000 people in Hama when Sunni Islamists rebelled in Syria in 1982, Saddam Hussein`s army killed at least as many Shias in southern Iraq when they rebelled after the 1991 Gulf War, and both regimes were systematically beastly to their local Kurds.

When the American invaders destroyed Saddam Hussein`s regime in Iraq in 2003, however, what ensued was not peace, prosperity and democracy. It was a brutal civil war that ended with Baghdad almost entirely cleansed of its Sunni Muslim population and the whole country cleansed of its Christian minority. Only the Kurds, insulated by their own battle-hardened army and their mountains, avoided the carnage.

So if the Baathist regime in Syria is driven from power, why should we believe that what follows will be any better than it was in Iraq? The country`s ethnic and sectarian divisions are just as deep and complex as Iraq`s.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/civil-war-in-syria.html

CNN: U.N. peacekeepers killed in Darfur

(CNN) -- Three United Nations peacekeepers were killed in an ambush in a camp for displaced people in Sudan's Darfur region, the global body said Tuesday.

Two of the dead were soldiers; the third was a police adviser for the joint U.N. and African Union mission in the troubled region. Another six peacekeepers were injured in the incident.

They came under attack at 10:15 Monday night in the Zam Zam camp in North Darfur while the security unit was on patrol. One of the assailants was also killed, a statement from the joint mission said.

It was unclear why the attack occurred.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "strongly condemns" the attack, the U.N. said in a statement. The attack was carried out by unidentified armed men while the peacekeepers were on a "confidence-building patrol," the statement said.

Ban "appeals to the Sudanese authorities to investigate the incident and to bring to justice the perpetrators as soon as possible," according to the statement.

The peacekeeping mission in Darfur is the world's largest at 20,000 authorized troops. Since it began in 2008, 33 peacekeepers have been killed.

"I condemn in the strongest terms this attack on our peacekeepers who have worked selflessly to bring security to the internally displaced persons of Zam Zam camp where so many Darfuris have sought refuge," said Ibrahim Gambari, head of the mission. "An attack on international peacekeepers is a war crime and we will ensure that justice will be served."

Darfur is among the most dangerous areas of operation for U.N. personnel. The region remains a tinderbox. At least 300,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million others driven from their homes as a result of fighting between Sudanese rebel groups and the Khartoum government and its allied armed militia.

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/11/world/africa/sudan-peacekeepers-killed/index.html?hpt=wo_c2

UK review identifies Afghan civil war risk

LONDON: A British government review of the Afghan conflict is to warn that there are “significant risks” of civil war or a Taliban takeover of the south and east of the country after Nato withdraws its combat troops at the end of the 2014.

On the 10th anniversary of the start of the war, military progress is patchy with fighting still intense in the east and in parts of Helmand province. Over the past few days, British troops have been sent in to the thick of a bloody, drawn-out struggle along the Helmand river valley, taking over a fiercely contested area from US marines a few kilometres south of Sangin town, the site of the UK’s heaviest losses since its forces moved into the province in 2006.

With three years to go until Afghan security forces are supposed to fight the insurgency without the help of foreign combat troops, the Afghanistan review will portray a country in turmoil. Last year’s 30,000-strong US troop surge and new counterinsurgency tactics have pushed the Taliban out of much of the territory it controlled a year ago, but with the widespread use of improvised mines and roadside bombs, as well as a campaign of assassinations, the insurgents have sought to paralyse the Kabul government and hinder western-backed development.

Retired US general Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), said the force was only “50% of the way” to achieving its goals in the country.

President Hamid Karzai’s administration remains weak and corrupt, reliant on a loose coalition of warlords. The country’s biggest bank has been crippled by rampant embezzlement, and there have been a string of assassinations of high-profile Karzai allies, culminating last month in the killing of the government top peace envoy, Burhanuddin Rabbani.

The British government review, ordered by the prime minister David Cameron earlier this year and due to be delivered in mid-November, will warn of significant risks of the recent, hard-won progress unravelling and the very real threat of a multi-dimensional civil war between insurgent factions, regional and tribal groups, fuelled by neighbouring powers jockeying for position.

Talibanisation of the Pakhtun belt
Another possible outcome is referred to as the “Talibanisation of the Pakhtun belt”, in which the Pakhtun areas on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border slip permanently under the control of ultra-conservative militants, further destabilising Pakistan, an already fragile state armed with nuclear weapons.

The report, as described by officials, will make clear that these remain worst-case scenarios which can be avoided. But even the outcome judged by the report to be most likely after the 2014 transition, a precarious Afghan state with pockets of chronic violence, would leave the terrorist threat from the region as potent as it is today.

A senior British diplomat would not comment on the specifics of the review as it is classified and has yet to be finalised, but confirmed that “those sorts of scenarios are being studied”. “It is going to be a cold-eyed realistic appraisal,” the diplomat said.

The 20 September killing of Rabbani by a suicide bomber with explosives concealed in his turban, has set back hopes of a negotiated settlement with the Taliban. While senior Nato officials believe the evidence leads back to the Taliban’s Pakistan haven in Quetta, they do not think the assassination was specifically ordered by the top leadership, but rather was the work of an over-zealous second-tier commander. That leaves open the possibility that informal US contacts, begun last year, could resume.

But levels of distrust, both between Nato and the Taliban, and between Rabbani’s northern kinsmen and rebel Pakhtun tribes in the south, are now higher than ever.

“Anyone who is following the situation in Afghanistan is worried. A civil war is a real possibility,” said Martine van Bijlert of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network.

“There is a real feeling of instability, that the future is unsure. People don’t know who are their friends and enemies. So they try to make themselves ready for any eventuality, positioning themselves politically and worrying about how strong they are.
People are falling back on old networks and old loyalties.”

In Helmand, last year’s influx of 11,000 of US marines has suppressed the insurgency in several districts and reduced the pressure on British troops garrisoned in the province. But Barack Obama is now drawing down the surge, and the troops are going home or redploying to the eastern provinces to counter the threat of splinter jihadist groups.

Three hundred British soldiers are currently being deployed with Afghan troops along a particularly volatile stretch of the Helmand river south of Sangin, replacing a US marine battalion that was unable to make progress against the local insurgents and found itself under daily attack, suffering five deaths over six months and more than 80 wounded.

Danish forces stationed further south towards the town of Gereshk were forced to withdraw earlier this year from a forward base known as Armadillo as a result of an insurgent onslaught, dismantling the fortifications stone by stone and shipping part of it back to a military museum in Denmark.

Not a lot has changed
The newly-arrived British troops and their Afghan counterparts will be patrolling an area known as Qal Yeh Gaz, just 12kms south of Sangin town. One of the departing US marines, Captain Andrew Terrell told the BBC that “not a lot has changed” since he was deployed nearby with British commandos four years ago. “The situation is no better. The people here are not fed up with the fighting, they’ve not reached the limit of what they’re willing to accept from the Taliban,” Terrell said. “It’s easier for them to move out of the area and hope it settles down, but they don’t look much further than tomorrow.”

A coalition of Afghan and western aid agencies has published research suggesting that despite the influx of $57bn in foreign aid since 2001, progress in health, education and a public sense of security has been patchy and tenuous.

Farhana Faruqi Stocker, the director of Afghanaid said: “Investments have been made where there is the greatest insurgency rather than where there is the greatest need. Impoverished regions have been ignored because they are ‘secure’.” She added: “Afghan lives have improved but the gains are fragile and reversible.”—Dawn/Guardian News Service

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/09/uk-review-identifies-afghan-civil-war-risk.html