Russia, the world's second largest arms exporter, may seal three new orders worth more than $3 billion for fighter aircraft over the next year, the top Russian defence think tank CAST said on Thursday.
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Moammar Gaddafi retains enough military might to resist the international intervention for several weeks or even months, according to a Swiss military expert.Alexandre Vautravers, editor of the Swiss Military Review and head of the international relations department at Webster University in Geneva, tells that the Libyan army still has significant strength in numbers of tanks, assault vehicles, weapons and troops.After 6 nights of air strikes, discord about the aims of the mission amongst its allied leaders is intensifying, and it is proving harder than expected to establish relations with the leaders of the rebel-led National Transitional Council.There was a lot of wishful thinking about this rebellion, according to Vautravers, who points out that popular support for the uprising is not comparable to what was seen in Tunisia or Egypt. The most favourable estimates say that only about 35 per cent of the population has actually rebelled against the Gaddafi regime. The US says the mission to destroy Gaddafi's air defences and impose the no-fly zone is nearly completed. What happens next?Alexandre Vautravers: The US military command has said that since the first bombs were dropped over Libya, there have been no aerial or ship movements by the Libyan armed forces. [But] military aviation has never played a decisive role in the attacks against the Libyan population. The harm that was really perpetrated against the population was done by other types of weapons – shelling from boats or artillery or heavy weapons – rather than by aviation. There is a bit of misunderstanding about what this no-fly zone was intended to achieve.Gaddafi loyalists are continuing to attack towns in Western Libya, in particular Misrata and Zintan. Can the rebels effectively fight back without the support of ground troops?A.V.: There are two very different kinds of forces that are fighting each other. The Libyan military is a relatively coordinated armed force. Certainly for a number of weeks it can continue fighting at the rate it is now. The Libyan military has very substantial stocks of military equipment, weapons kits and an arsenal of munitions. It has some 2,200 battle tanks, over 1,000 infantry fighting vehicles. The troops also have very frequent rotations. The mercenaries come from a number of tribes in sub-Saharan Africa, Morocco or from Eastern Europe and have the same kind of turnover. The troops are not going to be worn down in one or two months, they are rather going to be strengthened by their fighting experience. The rebellion has managed to seize a number of military weapons, barracks and munitions depots. But they don't have the coordination or training, or the command and control capabilities.How important are relations with the National Transitional Council (NTC)?A.V.: I think that establishing a relationship between Western forces and these combatants has proven more difficult than was originally planned. The NTC is made up of people who don't necessarily have a very recommendable track record either. We are talking about different tribes, about a different part of the country. Some people have referred to this more as a 'coup d'état' than a proper revolution. The relationship or the contacts that have been made with this council or with rebel fighters have been laborious at best.Should the ultimate goal of the intervention be to remove Gaddafi? What is the risk of stalemate if he isn't removed?A.V.: A lot of people will have very strong words about a UN resolution to protect the population against human rights abuses, against military attacks on unarmed civilians and so on. The problem is that when you have to get down to business and get your hands dirty a lot of countries have second thoughts. There is a kind of hypocrisy around the question of humanitarian military intervention or the responsibility to protect. The person who has best captured this is President Obama by saying you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.Obama says that the US will cede power to a British or French-led NATO coalition "within days". How do you think this will play out?A.V.: I find it fascinating that so much is being talked about with regards to this coordination because it's really a non-issue. The command and coordination is Nato. It may not have the Nato logo on it but for all purposes concerned it is a Nato operation. Even the planning to a great extent has been done by Nato staff. But on the questions of leadership, different countries have different aims or interpretations of the mandates.The confusion at the political level about the aim of the mission implies that there is no exit-strategy. Can we define an exit strategy at this point?A.V.: The exit strategy is going to be similar to many kinds of humanitarian interventions. We have seen this in Iraq and in Afghanistan where the US has gone in, handed over to Nato then to the European Union, then handing it over to a coalition of forces then handing it over to the local authorities. Most probably there will be this type of cascade that is going to take place.How important is the role of the Arab League in the intervention? A.V.: The Arab league of today is a very different kind of institution and may not speak with as much as a unified voice as it did ten years ago. The situation of many of these governments and regimes has changed. The links with western powers and international organisations are yet to be established by many of these transitional regimes. I'm not sure that we can expect to have a firm stance on the part of the Arab League in this situation. The Qataris have sent six aircraft which are now based in Cyprus, completely out of the way. It is a very symbolic presence. The United Arab Emirates has committed ships and transport aircraft and they are interested in being supportive of the humanitarian action. |
by Walid Phares, Ph.D. |
We all agree that Colonel Gaddafi is a dictator, that he supported terrorism against the U.S. and France, was responsible for the tragedy of PanAm 103, that he funded, armed and trained radicals in many African countries such as in Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Haute Volta, and in a few Middle Eastern countries, including Lebanon. We all are aware that his regime oppressed his people and tortured and jailed his opponents for four decades. I observed Gaddafi ruling Libya unchecked during and after the Cold War, before and after 9/11, and he was received by liberal democracies as a respectable leader. My first question is: Why has the West been silent so long and why is it so late in taking action against this dictator? Of course it had to do with oil. Western elites were morally and politically encouraging him by buying his oil and empowering him with endless cash as Libyan dissidents were dying in jails. Now, as missiles are crushing Gaddafi's air defense systems and tanks, Western governments should be invited for serious self-criticism for having enabled this regime to last that long. Squeezing or even defeating Gaddafi should prompt a comprehensive review of past decades of Western policies towards this regime and its abuses of human rights. The military operation should not end with the departure of Gaddafi from power. It must open the door for an examination of US and European policies that have aligned themselves with Petrodollars interests for over half a century. Such self-criticism was supposed to start with the removal of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, but unfortunately, it hasn't taken place yet, precisely because of the mega-influence inside the West and the United States by powerful lobbies representing the interests of OPEC, the Arab League and the OIC. Besides, questions should be raised about the Arab League and OIC endorsement of an action against Gaddafi's regime. Where were they for decades, when the Libyan dictator used to seize the microphone on their platforms and blast the very democracies they implored to act against him? These organizations catered to the interest of regimes they now are calling for sanctions against. Mr. Amr Moussa, the current secretary general of the Arab League, rises against Gaddafi after having supported him for years, while the latter was oppressing his own people. In my book, The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East, I call all these regimes and organizations a "brotherhood against democracy." They have supported each other against democratic movements and minorities everywhere in the region. From Sudan to Lebanon, from Iraq to Libya, the regional organizations were at the service of these regimes, not of the people. As these revolts are ongoing, these inter-regimes' organizations must be criticized and eventually reformed. Last year, the Arab League and OIC were endorsing Libya's role in the UN Council on Human Rights. Egypt, Tunisia and Libya's representatives at the Geneva UN body were shutting up the voices of Libyan dissidents just a few months ago. Now that the uprisings have crumbled the regimes in Cairo and Tunisia, and Tripoli's ruler is cornered, the negative impact these inter-regime organizations have on dissidents and human rights on international levels must be exposed and their future representation comprehensively reformed. Research confirms that many jihadists have been recruited from Libya, and particularly from its eastern provinces. Besides, Western policies towards Gaddafi's regime were incoherent. They should have supported true democratic forces and uprisings in the region from Iran to the Arab world. In short I would have advised for a different set of US global strategies in the Middle East. We should have backed the Iranian Green Revolution in 2009, the Cedars Revolution as it struggles against Hezbollah, and Darfur in its liberation drive against the Jihadist regime in Khartoum. In Egypt, we should have clearly sided with the secular youth and Copts, as they asked for a new constitution. In Iraq, we should have been clear in supporting reformist and secular forces. As far as Libya is concerned, removing Gaddafi is not the question. That should have been done years ago on the grounds of abuse of human rights. The question is who will come next? Clearly, the agenda of the Benghazi leadership is not clear. We know there is a layer of former bureaucrats, diplomats, intellectuals and military dissidents with whom partnership is possible and should be encouraged. But there is another layer below the surface which is made of Islamists, Salafists and in some cases Jihadists. From a simple observation of the latter's narrative on al Jazeera, one major component of the opposition is an Islamist force aiming at taking over in Tripoli. Hence, Washington must partner with the secular-democrats and warn that it won't endorse replacing Gaddafi's Jamahiriyya with a Jihadi emirate. Why aren't the most liberal Libyan dissidents received in Washington and made visible? The US and NATO military has been tasked to open the highways to Tripoli for the opposition, but we need to insure that on that highway we won't see the democracy groups eliminated by the next authoritarians. — Professor Walid Phares is a Professor of Global Strategies and an advisor to the Counter Terrorism Caucus of the US House of Representatives. He is the author of The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad. Visit Dr. Phares on the web at www.walidphares.com. |
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| Mikhail Margelov |
