What's Next for Libya?

Rebels have taken over Tripoli and heads of state around the world are heralding a new era in Libya, but there's no guarantee of smooth sailing.

We're going to take a day off before we jump headfirst in to that “yeah, but what does it all mean?” stuff about the unfortunate passing of Jack Layton, partly because we'd hate to accidentally pull a Christie Blatchford and partly because our little war in Libya appears to be heading into the decisive stage. Fouad Ajami soberly celebrates the end of Moammar Gadhafi's 41-year-long rule in The Wall Street Journal, citing Tacitus' famous line that “the best day after a bad emperor is the first.” Pockets of fighting still litter Tripoli, but by any other measure, Gadhafi, he of “the outrageous costumes, the tent he carried with him to distant capitals, the rantings in international forums, the phalanx of female bodyguards in a conservative Muslim society, and the four 'voluptuous' Ukrainian nurses who travelled with him everywhere,” is done. Ajami laments the loss of four decades wasted when Libya's oil reserves and proximity to Europe could have brought prosperity to the country's seven million downtrodden citizens, but even with Libya's future being far from certain, “it should be easy to see a better Libya than Gadhafi's monstrous regime rising out of this contest.” We can only hope.

Lloyd Axworthy pens a thoughtful column in The Globe and Mail on what's facing Libya once Gadhafi is arrested, although this being Axworthy, it's tough to keep your eyes open past the third or fourth paragraph. The former foreign affairs minister figures that due to the “dominant theology of deficit-balancing” in the U.S. and Europe, their foreign aid budgets are going to be much more paltry than they were for Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving the UN, the Arab League, and the African Union to pick up their slack in overseeing redevelopment. As for Gadhafi, Axworthy says that while “the temptation may be strong” to kill the guy, it's imperative he be brought to justice at the International Criminal Court to help reconciliation efforts. No matter how this all shakes out, Libya will be a trial run for the viability of nascent international institutions – the African Union and ICC in particular – in maintaining order in their backyards.

And finally in the National Post, Terry Glavin goes to town on Russia Today, the YouTube-based “news” agency that more often than not acts as an apologist for despotic regimes the world over. Glavin brings this up because one of their “journalists”, Mahdi Nazemroaya, who lives in Ottawa, is appealing to be airlifted out of Libya because he fears for his life. Nazemroaya had been filing his reports directly from the Gadhafi propaganda office, “purporting to expose the ravages of alleged looters who have taken the Gaddafists’ files on 'journalists.'” This antic is just the latest in Russia Today, or RT, reporting that appears to be aimed more at preserving totalitarian regimes than anything else (try checking out their coverage of the Syrian uprising if you want to lose your lunch). It would be funnier if RT wasn't one of the most-watched channels on YouTube, or if they weren't basically a 21st-century retread of Pravda (which actually still exists, fyi), but it's heartening to see the mainstream press pummel a worthy target. We can hope RT's fate might someday join those of the dictatorships, like Libya's, that it has so sneakily supported.