Time is Running Out in Libya

Every country fighting in Libya under the NATO flag has its own agenda. Victory is far from certain.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in general, and the Obama administration, in particular, deserve credit for agreeing to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1973 in Libya. Moammar Gadhafi was on the verge of flattening the rebel toehold of Benghazi. Had he been allowed to carry out his plan, the result might have been another Srebrenica, or perhaps another Rwanda. Without NATO’s help, it’s doubtful the UN resolution would have been enforced. And without Washington’s help, NATO wouldn’t even have gotten involved. However, after agreeing to do the right thing, NATO and the U.S. are going about it the wrong way.

Let’s start with NATO’s latest war by committee. As before – in places like Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan – NATO’s decision to intervene is producing its share of headaches. Dubbed “Unified Protector,” the NATO operation above and around Libya is not exactly living up to its name. Italy, for example, threatened to block the use of its airbases if NATO didn’t take full control of the operation. Germany, on the other hand, warned NATO not to try to do too much. France, which wanted to bypass NATO altogether and develop a Franco-Anglo-American command, is pursuing regime change. Turkey lectured the rest of the alliance about “pointing a gun” at Libya and is now freelancing a ceasefire deal. And the U.S. was always more focused on handing off the operation than on carrying out the objectives of the operation.

In fact, the U.S. was so eager to step back from the lead role that NATO now has to request assistance from U.S. aircraft before they will be deployed on strike missions. That presents a problem, since the U.S. accounted for 90 of the 206 NATO planes initially deployed in support of Unified Protector, and an even higher percentage of the planes capable of carrying out precision ground-attack missions. The U.S. Air Force’s contribution to Unified Protector has plummeted to just 39 planes, according to Air Force Magazine.

Not surprisingly, as soon as the U.S. receded into the “supporting role” promised by President Barack Obama, the intensity and effectiveness of the air war diminished:

• The Financial Times reports that “Britain and France are straining to fill the gap left by Washington’s decision to pull back.”
• “NATO has disappointed us,” rebel military commander Abdul Fatah Younis said after NATO failed to provide adequate air support to rebel forces in and around the port city of Misrata. “If NATO wanted to remove the siege on Misrata, they would have done so days ago,” he added.
• Similarly, Ali al-Essawi, the foreign policy director for Libya’s so-called Transitional National Council, blamed “bureaucratic delays” within NATO for “putting civilians’ lives at risk and complicating rebel efforts to fight the Gadhafi forces on the ground,” the New York Times reports.

Weeks ago, Gen. Charles Horner, who commanded the coalition air forces during Desert Storm, predicted this would happen: “Failure to fully unleash air power,” he warned, “will allow Gadhafi to play for time … and otherwise frustrate the coalition’s attempts to protect Libyan civilians.”

Equally worrisome are press reports indicating that allied bombs are falling in eastern Libya but not in western Libya, which means the regime’s centre of gravity – Gadhafi and Tripoli – is not being targeted. ABC News describes the situation as “calm in the west, chaos in the east.” That’s precisely the opposite of what the situation on the ground should be if NATO wants to cripple Gadhafi’s army and rescue the rebels.