Libya at the Crossroads

While Benghazi blossoms, Gadhafi hunkers down and NATO escalates.

Canada's involvement in the Libyan war is approaching its Parliament-imposed deadline before the House debates whether it should continue, and it looks like the Conservatives will approve an extension. They could use Jeremy Relph's column in the National Post about Benghazi's embrace of normalcy as Exhibit A for why the war is necessary: “Men repaint the curbs and parking spaces in the Uzu Hotel’s parking lot. Families have returned to the parks while their children play. Elsewhere children clean up trash on the side of the road in the city ... Cadillac Escalades, Pontiacs and BMWs fill the streets and the restaurants operate at full capacity, the options varied and multiple.” Relph's picture of a Gadhafi-free Benghazi sounds almost like a tourist brochure; that the rest of Libya could end up as such is a promising prospect indeed.

While Benghazi might be beautiful in May, Scott Taylor of The Halifax Chronicle Herald delivers a dose of reality on the ad hoc, amorphous military mission. “In a twist of logic eerily reminiscent of the famous American Vietnam War quote 'We had to destroy the village in order to save it,' NATO is launching stepped-up airstrikes against Libyan civilian populated areas in order to protect them from airstrikes,” writes Taylor. “The battlefield tactical confusion of this intervention is mirrored by the complete lack of strategic cohesion on the part of the NATO military alliance.” The African Union has withdrawn its support of the mission; fewer than half of the coalition countries are actually contributing militarily; and France is alone in recognizing the rebels as Libya's legitimate government. None bode well for the mission's long-term health.

Gwynne Dyer elaborates on that lack of progress in The Hamilton Spectator, suggesting NATO's steady escalation is proof that Messrs. Harper, Obama, Cameron, and Sarkozy are “getting desperate.” Dyer notes that beyond expelling Gadhafi forces from Misrata, the front lines of the war have barely moved in three months, and Gadhafi still controls Tripoli. The only options, Dyer supposes, are to “stop the war and leave Gadhafi in control of the larger part of a partitioned Libya, or they escalate further in the hope that at some point Gadhafi’s supporters abandon him.” And if history tells us anything, it's that the latter will win out.