Libya: Not Just a Tragedy But the Start of Another Endless War for America

This article is published on PJ Media.

[Note: Even if you aren't interested in Libya, don't miss the amazing quote at the end.]

By Barry Rubin

Yahoo highlighted two "amazing" stories shortly after the murder of five American diplomats in Libya and the attack on the U.S. embassy in Egypt that tell us a lot about the intersection between American reality and Middle East reality.

The first article insisted that American officials thought the terror attack on the U.S. embassy was planned (yeah, I don’t think the terrorists were passing by and just happened to have a rocket with them). The other asked tentatively whether maybe the “Arab Spring” hadn’t worked out so well. It’s almost the end of 2012 and these people are still in kindergarten!

Libya tells the story with a terrible irony but we should understand precisely what is going on and how the situation in Libya differs from that in Egypt. For it is proof of the bankruptcy of Obama policy but perhaps in a different way from what many people think.

So far the U.S. ambassador, four diplomats, and two U.S. soldiers trying to rescue the rest of the staff have been killed. According to a Libyan officer whose unit was helping the American rescue effort, the terrorists seemed to know precisely where the staffers were hiding. Might they have been tipped off by sources in the Libyan government or military? Probably, yes.

What happened in Libya has nothing to do with an obscure video from California, it has everything to do with the question of which side rules Libya. And the relationship between the attacks and the September 11 anniversary was meant to show that the Libyan terrorists supported September 11 and wanted to continue that battle.

In one sentence: the problem in Libya is that Obama got what he wanted and thus set off all the usual Western policy dilemmas—that he always denounced—which had existed in the region for a century. But Obama is not only ill-equipped to deal with these problems, he either cannot even recognize them or interprets them in ways disastrous for U.S. interests.  For whatever reason you would like to attribute, he wants to make nice with people who want to destroy his country. That might have been a forgivable naivete in early 2009 but by this point it is clear that Obama will never change, and that four more years in office will not improve him and his administration by one millimeter.

Obama decided, although only after what we are told was a titanic inner struggle, to kill Usama bin Ladin because bin Ladin launched a direct attack on American soil. But he sees no need to battle those trying to take over the Middle East and crush its people (including women,  Christians, homosexuals) and wipe Israel off the map. Nor does he see the need to wage effective struggle with governments that stand and deliberately do nothing while the American embassy is invaded or the American ambassador is murdered.

President Barack Obama and U.S. NATO allies got rid of a terrible dictatorship in Libya. Of course, there were dreadful murders and human rights’ abuses by the rebels—even racist murders of people because they had black skin, and were thus presumed to be supporters of the old dictator!--but Libya was too obscure a place and the mass media either didn’t care or wouldn’t hold Obama responsible for these things.

Then Obama had a second success in the election, where his client politician won over the Islamists. True, the new regime gives lip service to Sharia law but it is not a radical regime but precisely the kind of government, given the limiting conditions of Libyan society, that the West would want in Libya.

And now the problem begins. For the great “anti-imperialist” Obama has set up a classical “imperialist” situation. In Iran, for example, the Eisenhower Administration helped an existing, legitimate regime stay in power in 1953 and this supposedly led to Iranian radicalism and seizure of the U.S. embassy a quarter-century later. In Libya, the process may just take a few months.

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The Islamists of various factions, ranging from the Muslim Brotherhood to al-Qaida supporters, loathe the new government and the fact that the United States is behind it. In other words, Obama has just done what he has been denouncing his whole life: interfered in another country and “bullied” it into submission to America’s will. Now he has sent two American warships to Libya's coasts. Obama's friends call this "gunboat diplomacy."

One special feature of this situation, of course, is that some of those he helped were anti-American terrorists, armed and trained by NATO. Some of these people have entered the new military, others are now trying a stage-two revolution to overthrow the regime and institute a real Islamist revolution.

Otherwise, though, it follows the usual pattern. The Islamist revolutionaries have not accepted the status quo and hope to seize state power and drive out the Americans.

Obama has fallen into precisely the trap he has denounced in all his books and speeches. True, America is not claiming Libya as its territory but Obama’s friends call this “neo-colonialism” and “post-colonialism.” He is now the patron of the Libyan government. If it is incompetent, corrupt, or oppresses the people, Obama shares responsibility.

Moreover, as it does all these things and refuses to implement serious Sharia law lots of Libyans will blame those arrogant, imperialist Americans. Why shouldn’t they want to kill the American diplomats who “supervise” the status quo and prevent them from turning Libya into Afghanistan under the Taliban; Iran; Gaza under Hamas; or, somewhat more mildly, Lebanon under a mainly Hizballah government, and maybe what will happen in Syria at some point in the future.

What are the Libyan government's options? It can try to appease the opposition by more Islam. But that won't work really. It can try to appease the opposition by distancing itself from the United States, but given its weakness that won't work. And it can try to repress the rebels but since it cannot depend on its own military forces--which are riddled with jihadists--that won't work either.

That is the real lesson in Libya. For once, Obama took sides against the revolutionary Islamists. We are seeing in Egypt and the Gaza Strip that appeasement doesn’t work; we are seeing in Libya that engaging in conflict has its high costs, too.  Obama claims to have "liberated" Libya but to many Libyans he has enslaved it to infidels.

So what next? American military aid to the Libyan government and U.S. military advisors? An endless war against the jihadists? And what if the government in Libya, which is pretty fragile and cannot fully depend on its own military, starts to fall? In Somalia, the local al-Qaida branch didn’t win only because Ethiopia and other African nations sent in thousands of troops. In Bahrain—a complicated situation in which there is a mistreated Shia population whose opposition has both moderates and radicals—the government was only saved by Saudi troops and against the will of the White House.

Treating what has happened in Libya as an isolated tragedy misses the point. Viewing it as generalized proof of Obama’s terrible policy doesn’t get us to the solution. There is a battle going on in the Middle East that will continue for decades. Obama has largely helped the enemy side. In Libya while he gave some help to the Islamists, his basic policy supported the moderates for once. Now the price must be paid or one more country will fall to revolutionary Islamist rule and U.S. influence and credibility will decline even further.

This is a war, not a misunderstanding. It is a battle of ideologies and a struggle for control of state power, not hurt feelings over some obscure video.

PS: I have a lot of friends in the Foreign Service, now and retired, and I was very upset about the deaths of five American diplomats and two American soldiers in Libya. I know this person was a colleague, too. But my goodness, how horrifyingly revealing is this quote:

"They got the wrong guy," said a friend of the slain Ambassador Christopher Stevens at the [notoriously anti-Israel, BR] U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, "If there was someone who cared about the Arab and Muslim world, it was Chris," who had previously served there as chief of the political section. "He spoke Arabic, he was dedicated to the cause of the Arabs."

Perhaps this diplomat should give al-Qaida a list of approved Americans they should be assassinating.  In other words, what? It would have been better to have killed a Foreign Service officer more friendly to Israel? To have murdered some Republicans or Jews? I'm afraid that this is very frankly how these people think. And what is "the cause of the Arabs?" Which Arabs? To wipe Israel off the map? To have radical nationalist dictatorships? To have Sharia states? At least define your "Arabs" as the genuine moderates, genuine democrats, genuine liberals or even--since there aren't so many of those people--those who feel their self-interests basically coincide with those of the United States.

I find this person's statement even more shocking than the apology over the mysterious little you-tube film. And yes I have heard this before in private. OK, an anecdote. I'm sitting with about a dozen U.S. military officers doing a briefing a couple of years after September 11 and my co-briefer--a medium-high State Department official in the Middle East section--starts visibly panicking as he's speaking. "Other issues might threaten you," he tells them looking really scared, "but only the Israel issue can endanger your life." I can only report that the looks of contempt on the face of the officers made me proud of the U.S. army.

Note: I don't mean this as a criticism of all Foreign Service Officers. There are many good ones. But this reaction from a Jerusalem-based American diplomat to the death of Ambassador Stevens, plus four diplomats and now two U.S. soldiers rescuing the rest of the embassy staff is all too revealing. Perhaps he's just too confused about what country's capital he's in.

 Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Islamists Are Generally Winning But Not Everywhere and Not Inevitably

By Barry Rubin

Hussein Ibish is one of the more interesting Arab writers on regional affairs. In a piece published by the liberal site “Lebanon Now” he contemplates the broader meaning of the Libyan election. Although official results are not in yet it appears that the U.S.-backed National Forces Alliance led by the NATO-installed leader, Mahmoud Jibril, won a big victory.

In this light, Ibish critiques the idea that “assumes the inexorable rise of Islamist parties.” He is right and properly adds: “Libya shows that Islamists can be defeated in contemporary Arab elections, and this should be celebrated and emulated, not ignored or dismissed.”

Part of the problem, of course, is that the mass media and the analysts it generally features have so often—with almost monopolistic power—repeated that Islamists wouldn’t win or that it didn’t matter because they are really moderate. This has created a reaction among wiser people who warn the Islamists are winning and aren’s moderate.

Ibish doesn’t want the Islamists to win and stresses that they can be defeated. The question, of course, is how they can be defeated.

To begin with, seeing what happened in Libya reminds us that Islam is not some monolithic force that is inevitably radical or Islamist. Just because revolutionary Islamists can validly use quotations from the Koran and other Muslim holy books to justify their ideology doesn’t mean everyone will be convinced they are right.

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Ibish quotes the columnist Charles Krauthammer as writing that what’s “taking place in the region is an Islamist ascendancy, likely to dominate Arab politics for a generation.” And Ibish responds:

“There is no doubt that Islamist parties will be major factors in the coming decades. But what Jibril’s victory demonstrates is that the `Islamist ascendancy’ is by no means assured or even likely.”

I think Islamist ascendancy is likely but not assured. That’s not because I believe Arab politics are “relatively homogenous,” far from it. The problem is the collapse of Arab nationalism coupled with the weakness of liberal reformist views, and the Islamist side’s relative coherence and organization.

Let’s briefly look at some countries:

Click here to read the entire article.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press. Other recent books include The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center  and of his blog, Rubin Reports. His original articles are published at PJMedia.

Obama Administration New Achievement: Messing Up Turkey, Syria, and Libya Within 24 Hours

By Barry Rubin


It's truly amazing that literally every day the Obama Administration finds a new way to mess up the Middle East. July 14-15, 2011, is a new record since it damaged Western interests and any hope for a stable future in three countries almost simultaneously!

Read more

Why Is the U.S. in Libya? Good Question

By Barry Rubin




Listening to President Barack Obama talk about the administration’s Libya policy is a strange experience. He makes various arguments justifying the war there along the lines of: dictator Muammar Qadhafi is a bad guy, he has killed a lot of Americans in the past, and he was threatening to kill his own people so the United States must protect them.

As one listens to this, however, it seems as if even Obama doesn’t believe what his teleprompter is saying. The arguments are ridiculously transparent and if the media wanted to be critical they could tear Obama apart on the issue.

Read more

Answering Readers’ Questions on Libya, Middle East Democracy and On Islam

By Barry Rubin

I answer reader's questions on:

--Why is the Obama Administration reluctant to go to Congress over the war in Libya?

--What should the U.S. government be doing about democratization in the Arab world?

--How do you tell a moderate Muslim?

--Is there such a thing as moderate Muslims?

Read it all

The Plan in Libya (in 100 words)

This article is published in PajamasMedia. The text is presented here for your convenience.

By Barry Rubin


Here's what's happening now in Libya:

--Western forces bomb Libyan government forces on various pretexts.

--Give intelligence to rebels.

--Give military advisors to rebels.

--Give rebels arms indirectly.

Goal: Rebels win war with no direct Western intervention on the ground or Western casualties. Dictator Muammar Qadhafi falls; Western intervening states say: All we did was protect civilians and have a no-fly zone! We stuck to the UN resolution.

What happens afterward? Not clear anyone has thought that through.

In a few years critics will skewer this operation as deceptive. One hopes they won't also be ridiculing a catastrophic outcome.

The Mobile Phone Dealer Explains Qadhafi-Zionist Witchcraft

This article is published in PajamasMedia. The text is presented here for your convenience.

By Barry Rubin

An Australian reporter writes the following from Libya:

"Gaddafi's forces have had the upper hand in the desert battle that has raged for more than a month.

"Rebels say this is because of black magic. They invoke Satan. `These are magic papers,' said mobile phone dealer turned rebel Ashraf al Houmi, 25. The papers-185 pages of writing, symbols and numbers-were found near abandoned government tanks.

"`This is the Israeli Star of David and this is some of the Koran backwards. The Koran reversed is Satan,' explained Khaled el Faitouri, 27. "`We know they can do black magic with these drawings.'"

Now I wouldn't have bothered with this except for one thing: the amazing disconnect between being a mobile phone dealer and believing in this kind of thing. Possibly al-Houmi also repairs phones.

Westerners assume that technology and thinking precisely the way they do goes together. Not so. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini pioneered in using tape cassettes for spreading Islamist revolution. Back in 1979 that was the equivalent of using social media. Revolutionary Islamists have used the Internet far more effectively than democratic reformers in the Middle East. Technology does not necessarily mean moderation or democracy.

Then there's Mr. el Faitouri (I'm not responsible for the bad transliteration). He equates "the Israeli Star of David" with demonic powers, taking us back to the Middle Ages. By the way, by saying "Israeli Star of David," makes him an "anti-Zionist" while if he had said "Jewish Star of David" that would supposedly make him an antisemite. Such is the sophistication of the Western intellectual debate on such issues today. But never mind.

The truth is that in the Arabic-speaking and Muslim-majority worlds the attitudes of even educated people toward Jews and Israel are often quite bizarre, a fact usually concealed by mainstream media.

Have no doubt: this kind of thing finds its way into political decisionmaking and public opinion. Reading revolutionary Islamist materials--say, from Hamas, Hizballah, Iran, and the Muslim Brotherhood--is often like reading something from the Spanish Inquisition or Medeival times. Unfortunately, this is the doctrine guiding a steadily advancing doctrine which all too many people in the West believes can be made moderate or is even already moderate.

I remember the first time I experienced this when in university. A very Westernized, cosmopolitan Egyptian student explained that Israel and Idi Amin conspired to create the Israeli rescue at Entebbe Airport of hostages held by airplane-hijacking terrorists in order to make Israel look good. These crazy conspiracy theories and bizarre worldviews are not merely amusing sideshow acts, they are the foundations of people's thinking.


The gap between Mr. el Faitouri, whose cause is now being aided by NATO forces, and Mr.Ahmadinejad,who will soon have nuclear weapons, is not very wide at all.

Libya Is To Obama as Iraq Was to Bush

By Barry Rubin

Let's begin with a quote from a Los Angeles Times story:

"The nascent rebel effort in eastern Libya has begun to fray in the face of chaotic battlefield collapses. For many rebel fighters, the absence of competent military leadership and a tendency to flee at the first shot have contributed to sagging morale. Despite perfunctory V-for-victory signs and cries of "Allahu akbar!" (God is great), the eager volunteers acknowledge that they are in for a long, uphill fight."

This is what happens when the United States gets involved in a war without knowing what's going on beforehand. What if the rebels collapse--and the no-fly zone and a few aerial attacks probably wouldn't prevent that.

Faced with a victory for dictator Muammar al-Qadhafi, the West can either:

A. Accept a defeat, help refugees fleeing into Egypt, admit tens of thousands of Libyans into the United States, and face the consequences of a vengeful Qadhafi or...

B. Escalate, send arms and advisors, perhaps some day combat troops to fight a war in Libya. Oh, and by the way, thanks to recent events neither Egypt nor Tunisia will provide a base of operations for such a war. And any American forces on the ground might be murdered by hardline jihadis on "our" side.

Of course, what's most likely for a while is Option C: Continue doing what they are doing now and pretending that everything's going great.

Welcome to Obama's Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Of course, in Iraq, at least the United States started out with an impressive military victory. While the Bush Administration didn't fully understand the forces within Iraq and how to deal with them, it had a higher level of information and cooperation than does its successor in Libya.

The U.S. government has committed itself to protect civilians in Libya. If Qadhafi kills civilians does that trigger an all-out U.S. or NATO invasion of Libya? I'm not taking a position on this, just pointing out that it seems as if the Obama Administration never thought about it, and the media isn't asking this question either!

What happens if the rebels murder civilians? Will the U.S. army attack them?

Libya: What A Difference A Day Makes!

By Barry Rubin

Monday: President Obama says, "And tonight, I can report that we have stopped Gadhafi's deadly advance."

Tuesday: Associated Press reports: Moammar Gadhafi's forces hammered rebels with tanks and rockets, turning their rapid advance into a panicked retreat...."

The Intervention in Libya: A Feel-Good Mirage

By Barry Rubin

The Western intervention in Libya is the kind of thing that makes governments feel good and look good--provided they have a tame media unwilling to ask tough questions--but is of little or no strategic importance.

There are two good rationales for the operation: If Qadhafi survives he is likely to return to a high priority on international terrorism and subversion and if he won he probably would have murdered hundreds, even thousands of people. While Syria and the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip are high-profile terrorism sponsors that U.S. policy accepts, next to them Qadhafi is the worst such figure and he is highly adventurous.

So a case can be made for intervention. Yet there are also points on the other side. Consider the following:

1. The intervention has not brought the civil war one inch (or one millimeter if you prefer) closer to resolution.

2. The intervention has done virtually nothing to bring victory to the opposition and the defeat and departure of dictator Muammar Qadhafi.

3. The intervention has not brought us any nearer to understanding the nature of the Libyan opposition.

The idea that the Libyan rebels are mostly or all al-Qaida and Islamists is absurd and there's no evidence for it.  Certainly there are Islamists. And of course, the idea that they are mostly--or are mainly led by--moderate liberal democrats is equally absurd.

What are their motives?

Understandable hatred for a terrible, corrupt, repressive regime led by a madman, horrible even by Middle Eastern, Arab world standards.

Regional antagonisms against domination by western Libyans. This implies, however, that a lot of Libyans in the western part of the country support Qadhafi.

Tribal anger from the feeling that other tribes get the loot. By the same token, Qadhafi has a loyal base of support among the tribes who have received benefits from him.

And of course Islamist influences, too. There is no doubt that there are a few among the rebels with al-Qaida ties and more with Muslim Brotherhood links. But the question is whether these people are dominant in the movement, and the answer is "no."

Tunisia is not Egypt is not Libya. In Tunisia, organized Islamists have a real but limited base, in part because of systematic repression in the past. In Egypt, they have a much larger base given the movement's deep roots and also, ironically, because the Mubarak regime was much more tolerant of the Brotherhood operating than is understood in the West. Libya has more in common with Tunisia in this respect than it does with Egypt.

The problem, then, is not that the rebels are all Islamist radicals. The problem is:

• Nobody has bothered to investigate this issue in the U.S. government, an act of monumental irresponsibility especially before intervening militarily on their side.
• There is not even a glimmer of a strategy to help the least objectionable people and groups against those who might create a post-Qadhafi anti-American, radical Islamist regime.

• Islamists have an attractive ideology and are well-organized so they may well come out first in a post-Qadhafi regime.

• Islamists will also have a lot of international support and funding from the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, etc.

Finally, the international leadership of the rebels are "respectable" former government officials. But, of course, they have no real control over what goes on inside the country. (Consider what happened in Iraq for example).

So the problem is not that the Libyan rebels are mostly revolutionary Islamists as a group but that a thoughtless, careless policy might end up installing revolutionary Islamists in power some day. Sort of like...Egypt.

The intervention has not in any way prevented Libyan civilians from being killed or wounded by rifles, machine-guns, artillery, or various other weapons. It has only prevented them from being killed by planes, helicopters, or--to a limited extent--tanks.

Can anyone challenge any of these assertions? No. They can only ignore or distort them.

So what has the intervention achieved in terms of Libya?

It has slowed, but not necessarily stopped Qadhafi's victory. Thus, the war will go on longer. Perhaps the country will be split in two for a long period of time. Oil production will remain largely off-line.

The intervention has also prevented Qadhafi from importing arms, though there is no proof that he needed to do so. Finally, it has prevented Libyan oppositionists from being killed by planes or helicopters.

Finally, it has unintentionally showed that the Western alliance is in tatters and that there is no substitute for American leadership.

By the way, it is pretty horrifying when the president of the United States says, as Obama did, "It is U.S. policy that Qadhafi needs to go." Note the passive form. It says: it's not U.S. policy to get rid of Qadhafi but he ought to leave to spare us the problem altogether. In other words, we aren't going to resolve it so let Qadhafi do so for us by disappearing of his own accord.

The implication here is that he should just decide to move to southern France or that his own colleagues should get rid of him. (The latter idea worked in Egypt, but conditions were different there.) But this phrasing makes the United States an onlooker. It expresses a hope, not a strategy and not an operation to be implemented. Of course, Obama also justifies his policy on international consensus rather than U.S. national interests. And he also justifies it on the basis of a humanitarian defense of civilians, which is not the same as overthrowing governments.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

The War in Libya: Unprecedented Strangeness

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By Barry Rubin

Should the United States and Europe want Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi out of power? Sure. But the real question is how U.S. policy is dealing with this crisis.

1. Nothing could be more obvious than the fact that all of these people talking about how evil Qadhafi is are doing sonly because he is being severely challenged in a civil war. Where were all of these humanitarians when nobody was writing about his repression? Better late than never but let's get real about what has happened here.

2. How can a president go to war without even seeking a congressional resolution?  Talk about an imperial presidency! Some in the media are so ridiculously eager to support Obama that one CNN reporter defended him by saying that he had telephoned some members of Congress!

But, for example, both George Bush presidents went to Congress before taking action in Iraq. What is the legislative body governing the United States, the Senate and House of Representatives or the UN General Assembly and Security Council?

3. What is the aim of the war? Overthrowing Qadhafi? Forcing a ceasefire? Protecting civilians? I've never before seen anarchy on the side of a U.S.-led (or is it a French-led?) coalition. From minute to minute the strategy seems to change.

4. Who is the opposition that the West fights to help? Islamists? Tribalists? Regionalists? Moderate democrats? Before you help someone win a war it helps to know who they are.

5. How can people who spent years criticizing the war in Iraq, telling us that war is no solution, decrying civilian casualties from other countries' defensive activities, arguing that such interventions led to getting bogged down, apologizing for past interventions, insisting that there must be an "exit strategy," and claiming that interventions in the Third World made the United States hated as an imperialist bully now plunge the United States into a third simultaneous war in a Muslim-majority country?

6. This war was entered into on the premise that the "Arabs" support it. But now the Arab League says it only supports a no-fly zone war and civilian protection, not an effort to defeat and overthrow Qadafi. This poses the broader question: Has anyone in the U.S. government considered the regional implications?

One might note that the Arab nationalists oppose the intervention while the Islamists support it. That's not a good indication. Indeed, the country most enthusiastic about the operation--even supposedly offering to send military forces to fight alongside the United States--is Qatar, the Arab state closest (with the exception of Syria) to Tehran!

7. Just calling something a humanitarian intervention does not solve all of the problems involved. The U.S. intervention in Somalia--the perfect example of a disaster in this regard--was also humanitarian in motivation.

8. At this point, at least, few are noticing a very interesting point about the Libya affair. Frightened by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Qadhafi abandoned his nuclear weapons' program and went out of his way to cooperate with the United States on this issue, fearing a similar invasion. Giving up a nuclear defense he still got invaded. How does this look to Iran's regime? See, the rulers can now say, if we don't have nuclear weapons there's nothing to protect us from the West!

I have argued that Iran has sought nuclear weapons as a "defensive umbrella for aggression." In other words, as Pakistan and North Korea have shown, if you have nuclear weapons you can do pretty much what you want (attack neighbors, sponsor terrorism against them) and nobody will touch you. Qadhafi's case has now proven this to be the "best" strategy.

9. In terms of timing, the U.S. government waited until the last moment--reportedly due to  Obama's indecision--then rushed into a war without proper thought, planning, or definition of the mission there.

10. Instead of promoting unity among Western allies, Obama's abdication of American leadership and general ineptness has promoted conflict. For the first time, NATO allies are openly bickering.  Nobody is in charge, there's no agreed plan, different countries are acting in conflicting ways. 

Le Nouvel Observateur, a magazine supporting the French left, described the operation as "a boat without a captain." This is no accident since Obana thinks that the world is better off without having America take the lead. The mess became so big and conflict among the participants became so bitter that Germany pulled out altogether.

So this Libya operation has lots of problems, many or most of which could have been avoided by a competent American leadership. At least the Iraq war was a huge success at the start and only later became something of a mess. This war is a mess from the start.

I am not saying that I necessarily oppose military intervention in Libya in principle. My view is that, first, there should have been a serious investigation of the Libyan opposition--this condition has not been met--and if it seemed worth supporting it should be sent arms and equipment.

Instead, we are getting a confused, ill-defined, and seemingly open-ended operation. The real issue is not whether something should be done but how it's being done. As for what the goal is, who knows?

If you want to read something really superb and detailed on Libya, here's Tony Cordesman's report which is the best thing I've read on the subject of the civil war there.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com/.

Middle East on Fire: March 21, 2011

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By Barry Rubin

Events are happening so fast that I can only summarize, trying to add some analytical depth to each development. So here goes….

Egypt

The referendum resulted in a 77 percent “yes” vote on constitutional amendments to reduce the powers of the president and ensure fair elections. The changes were reasonable ones.

BUT the two leading presidential candidates Amr Moussa (nationalist) and Muhammad ElBaradei (democrat) opposed the referendum. They claimed that the changes would help the Muslim Brotherhood take power. This means the result is a defeat for them both.

The army, which currently rules Egypt, and the Muslim Brotherhood supported the amendments. So does this mean that the “yes” vote is a victory for the Brotherhood? Yes, in part.

There are three reasons people voted “yes”:

--The amendments are good ones.

--People want to move forward, have elections, and get things back toward a more normal situation.

--They want to show support either for the army or the Brotherhood. Some think this is also a victory for the old regime as well, the former ruling National Democratic Party, though I’m not sure on this last point.

Yet there is no way to avoid seeing this as a victory for the Muslim Brotherhood which, a growing number of pro-democratic people in Egypt worry, has support within the army. That's why the National Democratic Party's resurgence is an idea that's popping up: because people want to believe there is some organized force other than the Brotherhood!

What is important here is that the political forces that seemed to be emerging have undermined their own popularity and shown how few people they can actually mobilize. Remember also the fact that the Brotherhood isn’t going to run a candidate for president and has now fallen out with ElBaradei.

So will Moussa or ElBaradei be president? Who will the Brotherhood support? Where do Egypt’s people stand? Can the nationalists and democrats organize? These are the questions to be determined.

Libya

The United States and other countries are now at war with Libya, now engaged in a third war in a Muslim-majority country (Afghanistan and Iraq)! President Barack Obama has said Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi must go.

But what is the commitment—justified by a UN resolution but not a congressional one!—on this issue?

If it is just a campaign to wipe out Libya's air defenses and stop the regime from using planes in its war effort, why have some Libyan ground forces been attacked? If it is limited to a bombing campaign, that won't bring the rebels a victory or stop Qadhafi from winning the war.

In short, is this a limited but meaningless public relations' oriented feel-good operation to declare "victory" by having a "no-fly" zone that changes little or nothing on the ground?

And is this policy a good thing or a bad thing?

I’m quite sympathetic with the idea of overthrowing Qadhafi but this is precisely the kind of operation that everyone always says should be avoided: no clear objective, no apparent strategy, an open-ended commitment, no serious thought about what happens if “we” win.

Not to mention the fact that deciding on when the United States makes war now seems a function of the UN and not the U.S. Congress. Imagine if President George W. Bush launched a war without even asking for a congressional resolution!

Oh, and guess what! After supposedly endorsing Western intervention the Arab League (predictably!) has condemned it. And who did the condemning? Why none other than the League's leader Amr Moussa, who may become Egypt's president in a few months, a position he will use to bash the United States on a daily basis. It might not be long before Arab media, regimes, nationalists, and Islamists will be condemning "Western imperialist aggression" against Libya.

And the total mess in the decision-making process leading to the war, indecision, and internal conflicts are all readily apparent, too. The situation screams out: this will not end well.

Finally, who the heck is the Libyan opposition? At least in Egypt the administration could pretend to answer the question of to whom it was turning over power, nice Facebook-using equivalents of the Founding Fathers. The U.S. government cannot answer the question about who it is at war to put into power in Libya!

The opposition seems to be a combination of factors: those who (understandably) hate Qadhafi, young people who want to emulate Egypt’s revolution, tribal forces from eastern Libya (for much of history a separate country) that view the regime as an alien presence in their region, and Islamists of various types. 

In contrast to the (anti-Islamist, though being a club for dictators) Arab League, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the leading Muslim Brotherhood cleric, has actually supported the Western offensive against Qadhafi! One should not assume that this is an Islamist-led revolt by any means, but who knows? That’s the kind of thing you’d like to understand before launching a war to bring victory to this side, right?

In other words, Obama has just launched a possibly open-ended war to overthrow a dictator and bring democracy to an Arab country, albeit by using the minimal amount of troops. Doesn’t this seem just a bit like his predecessor’s war in Iraq but less planned, less based on U.S. strategic interests, and with less understanding of the country and the forces being supported there?

Even if the goal of overthrowing Qadhafi and to keep him from massacring thousands of people is a good one in principle, the procedure is dangerously inept.

Syria

Despite ferocious repression, the anti-regime demonstrations in Syria have gained momentum. I doubt that they are going to cause the regime serious problems in the end but it is encouraging to see that a lot of the Syrian people are fed up.

Particularly significant is the opposition in the long-discontented Kurdish region, where an ethnic-nationalist impulse joins other factors in prompting opposition. Meanwhile, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which is part of the leading exile opposition group, has shaken up its leadership, perhaps believing it must prepare for new opportunities to challenge the Assad dictatorship.

U.S. policymakers have not—and will not—say one word in support of Syria’s opposition, which is a scandalous omission.

Iran

And speaking of scandalous omissions, you can read President Barack Obama’s Iranian New Year’s statement and note how careful he is to avoid giving support to the Iranian opposition. The administration has clearly decided (this has been clear for a long time) that backing Iran’s dissidents will discredit them in the eyes of the masses (funny, it doesn’t take this into account in every other country—as in Egypt--where it is more likely to be true!)

“The United States,” Obama says, “does not meddle in Iran’s internal affairs,” but merely stands up for “rights that should be universal to all human beings.” What happened to multiculturalism?

Some in the West may misinterpret Obama's message as support for the Iranian opposition but I'm certain no one in Iran will look at it this way. Saying that the Iranian regime is repressive and the United States likes human rights and democracy is hardly backing the regime's overthrow and helping the opposition. On the contrary, it is in line with the policy articulated by Undersecretary of State Burns and which I'd summarize like this:

The United States will help bring down "pro-Western" Arab regimes in order to prevent them from being even more unpopular or overthrown by radical Islamists. They will then become good democracies, in part by integrating most of the Islamists who will become moderate. As good democracies they will then furnish a good example to people living under radical regimes (Iran) who will then overturn their rulers without the United States doing anything.

I'm not satirizing, I'm summarizing.

Compare the Obama and Bush policies:

Obama: Help overthrow "pro-American" Arab regimes (and now, also Libya's dictatorship for humanitarian reasons). Avoid exercising American leadership in the region.

Buth: Help overthrow "anti-American" Arab regimes and Iran.  Exercise American leadership in the region.

While both strategies have their flaws, how the heck can Obama say that Mubarak must go and Qadhafi must go but not dare say that the Iranian Islamist regime must go? Mubarak was, after all, a U.S. ally, and Qadhafi was a terrorist troublemaker but who has not bothered the United States much in recent years.

In contrast, Iran is sponsoring anti-American terrorism; killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan; harboring al-Qaida; calling for genocide in Israel; and seeking to overthrow every government friendly to America in the Middle East.

How can anyone dare say that the Obama Administration makes sense, at least in a good way?

Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His books include Islamic Fundamentalists in Egyptian Politics and The Muslim Brotherhood (Palgrave-Macmillan); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East, a study of Arab reform movements (Wiley). GLORIA Center site: http://www.gloria-center.org His blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.

Crisis and Civil War in Libya: A Self-Interview

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By Barry Rubin


What's happening in Libya?


The mad, repressive dictator Muammar Qadhafi is winning.


Who is the Libyan opposition?


I don't know. I haven't seen a single serious journalistic or academic investigation to answer this question.


What is U.S. policy?


U.S. policy doesn't want Qadhafi to win.


What is U.S. policy doing to achieve this goal?


The president made a statement to that effect.


And?


That's about it. U.S. diplomats are discussing the idea of a "no-fly" zone and other measures at the UN.


Would a "no-fly" zone help?


Not much.


When is a "no-fly" zone likely to be implemented?


After all the opposition has been wiped out by Qadhafi.


So then you're saying that U.S. policy doesn't make any sense?


Yes, that's what I am usually saying. Unfortunately, it's usually true.


Why then does the mass media and those who it does--unlike you--interivew not say these things?


You'll have to ask them that question. If you read what officials say to the media it all makes "perfect sense." They are talking about it. But this is what you get when there's no U.S. leadership but merely consultations with everybody else.


But here's something amusing. One of the main articles on Libya was written by someone who I know first-hand has absolutely no knowledge about that country. Once, on a different subject, a friend of mine told this person that she was going on television to be interviewed and was nervous because she didn't know enough about the subject. "Fake it, that's what I always do," he answered. That's how things work in Washington DC.


What should the United States and the West do? 


Investigate the opposition--which should already have been done--and if they are genuinely pro-democracy people and not radical Islamists then send them military and financial aid. If the president of the United States says that Qadhafi should go--and given his long record of extremism, terrorism, and anti-Americanism that response makes sense--then do something about it.


Here's how it is supposed to work: The president of the United States quickly consults with allies, announces a policy, and invites others to follow. That should take a total of 3-4 days followed by action. Now we have weeks of back and forth, ending with something watered-down, too little, too late, with too many compromises.

But, to be fair, here's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's response:

"The answer to why a UN resolution is because we need to have international support for anything that anyone does on behalf of the opposition and the civilians in Libya. To go unilaterally, whether it was a European nation, the United States, or an Arab nation, would fly in the face of the international community. And it would also limit the kind of support that would be necessary....I think that it is certainly fair to say that it took a while for people to feel that there was going to be international support, including Arab support, for any action. But now that's being considered."

That might well make sense but also note that what she says seems to rule out the United States taking unilateral action on anything, anywhere, any time. It's one thing to decide pragmatically that international support is useful, quite another to set up some ideological test about unilateralism "fly[ing] in the face of the international community," whatever that means.

Oh, by the way, though, European allies are totally confused trying to figure out what is U.S. policy toward Libya. The French are calling for the sending of Western troops there.  

I wouldn't favor sending troops. The overthrow of Qadhafi by people who would produce a more democratic and less radical government is in the U.S. interest and in the interest of Libya's people. But every day that nothing is done it is more likely that Qadhafi will prevail. Then the world will watch and say critical words while he executes hundreds, even thousands, of people.


Have we seen this before?


I'm glad you asked! On one hand, in 1991 the United States set the guidelines and put together a coalition to throw Iraqi forces out of Kuwait without standing around doing nothing and waiting for the UN to act. That was a success.

The second lesson of  that crisis, however, was that after the U.S.-led coalition triumphed there was a rebellion within Iraq against Saddam Hussein. The United States even imposed a "no-fly" zone, but then basically watched while Saddam unleashed a bloodbath. And a dozen years later, U.S. forces had to go in again to get rid of him.


Is that an important lesson for dealing with Qadhafi?


Yes, get rid of him now as long as you know he won't be replaced by something worse.


What could be worse?


A radical Islamist regime that joined forces with either the Iran-Syria bloc or Muslim Brotherhood forces to overthrow all the region's governments, start new wars with Israel, drive Western influence out of the region, and repress the people even more (though in Libya that last point might be impossible).

Media and Middle East: Wow, These People Are Repressive Dictators! Who Knew?

By Barry Rubin

For those of us who have been trying to talk about Middle East dictators for a long time--I wrote my book on the subject, Modern Dictators, more than a quarter-century ago--it is amusing to see how people are lining up to be "horrified" by those evil repressive regimes.

Some of these people have built their whole careers on saying that the only problem in the Middle East is the Arab-Israeli conflict, then adding this was Israel's fault. Indeed, many of them extolled these dictators, especially the anti-American ones.

Reminds me also of how Yasir Arafat was regularly whitewashed in the media--with little about his extremism, lies, corruption, and direct involvement in terrorism--until he was dead and thus bashing him had no political implications about the Palestinian movement's nature, behavior, and goals. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein also enjoyed a pretty good press until overthrown by the United States.

If there was time,  I could dig up dozens of examples of mass media howlers (send me any you find) but since a friend of mine has done a case study on Libya in this regard, I'll publish it here with some small additions.

The New York Times has an article entitled "Libya’s Butcher" that tells us:


"Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya vowed on Tuesday that he would “fight on to the last drop of my blood” and die a “martyr.” We have no doubt that what he really meant is that he will butcher and martyr his own people in his desperation to hold on to power. He must be condemned and punished by the international community."

"Colonel Qaddafi, who took power in a 1969 coup, has a long, ruthless and erratic history. Among his many crimes: He was responsible for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. In 2003, after years of international sanctions, he announced that he had given up terrorism and his pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons."

But how has the Times dealt with this horrible monster in the past?  Well, Qadhafi was given space for his views.

Or here where Saif Qaddafi, son of the dictator, was allowed to justify the release of a murderer.

Or here with a puff piece celebrating the eco-friendliness of Saif

The Times had no problem promoting this guy in different ways over the years. It's current portrayal of him as a butcher should have been confirmed by its shunning of him in the past.

Or in other words, it is now saying: I'm shocked! Shocked! To see that dictatorship is going on!

But now the Times is busy working to make the next generation of would-be dictators and extremists look good, notably regarding the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and its charismatic spiritual guide, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Not one word about the Brotherhood's collaboration with the Nazis, support for terrorism, and hysterical antisemitism has appeared in most of the American mass media.

NY Times: Last Week Explains How Iran Getting the Bomb is Good for America; This Week Explains How the Qadhafi Regime is Good for Libya

By Barry Rubin

Nowadays, nothing is too ridiculous to say about the Middle East, especially in the New York Times. Following up running an op-ed explaining how Iran getting nuclear weapons would be good for the United States (the scariest part is that the author works for the U.S. Air Force) the once-great newspaper of broken record now gives us a long article about how great the Libyan regime and son-of-Qadhafi are. Here you can see the pattern that prevails elsewhere: taking for granted as truth the lies that dictatorial regimes and radical movements tell while endlessly explaining that just about everyone in the world except Usama bin Ladin is a moderate.

Clearly, the newspaper has learned nothing from its coverage--which at the time won a Pulitzer but is now viewed as shameful--of all the wonderful features of the Stalinist regime in the USSR during the 1930s.

UK-Libya Relations: Release Terrorist, Make Oil Deal, Train…Terrorists?

By Barry Rubin

First the British government released a Lockerbie terrorist, despite his having killed so many people, as part of an oil deal with Libya. Now, according to a credible report, the British army will be training the elite forces of dictator Muammar Qadhafi, the same man who almost certainly ordered the Lockerbie bombing and many other terrorist attacks.

So reports the Daily Telegraph. Since early this year, the British army has been training Libyan Special Forces. The newspaper notes that Libya has also armed the IRA with guns and explosives in launching terror attacks against Britain in the past. The leak comes from British soldiers who are disgusted with this policy.

There could be arguments for this kind of activity in some cases. The British army could be trying to teach Libyan soldiers to behave better, seeking to build bridges for a closer relationship, or even recruiting intelligence agents.

The British government might well see this connection as shielding their country from terrorism at Libya’s hands. Let them go kill citizens of some other place. This is a frequently seen European policy in the past. Starting in the 1960s, archival documents show, the British government made nice to Fatah and the PLO politically in order to buy immunity, while France and Italy had policies in later decades of letting terrorist groups operate within their territory as long as they only attacked those outside of it.

But with the mercurial (a polite word for bizarre and psychopathic) as leader, it is unlikely that this will lead to anything good. Probably these skills will be put to use in future for carrying out terror attacks and training people from other countries to do so, possibly even against Britain.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books: . To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports, .

How Not to Moderate Radicals: The UK, Libya, Prisoner Releases, and Oil Deals

By Barry Rubin

The scandal of Britain releasing a Libyan terrorist who helped kill 270 people in the Lockerbie bombing in exchange for an oil deal continues to build. But I want to focus on some details of the issue that shed light on…well, just about everything concerning Western relations with the Middle East.

First, in a damaging interview, UK Justice Minister Jack Straw admitted that the oil deal was “a very big part” of the prisoner deal. This in itself is shocking. Straw is known for being too free with his mouth and this time opened it large enough for his foot to enter firmly therein.

The interesting part is how Straw justifies such behavior:

“I’m unapologetic about that... Libya was a rogue state. “We wanted to bring it back into the fold. And yes, that included trade because trade is an essential part of it and subsequently there was the BP [British Petroleum] deal.”

Of course, we know that what goes on with trade—and this applies to Syria, Iran, and other “rogue” states is not to make moderation but to make money. But here are the other problems.

First, Libya, of course, is still an extremist state. . So the “moderation” through concession policy has failed repeatedly.

Only in the last week dictator Muammar Qadhafi blamed Israel for all the woes of the Africa continent and threatened Switzerland because it dare send police when his visiting son beat up two servants.

Second, regarding Switzerland, that country backed down on the incident in the face of Libyan demands. Surrender and concession is also a big part of the “moderation” strategy. But in the context of Middle Eastern social psychology and political culture, such behavior only emboldens the radicals, which is also what’s happening. And this leads naturally to the next point.

Third, whatever you think of the Iraq war remember that Libya’s temporary “moderation”—in the form of giving up its nuclear weapons program—came out of pure fear. The United States had just invaded Iraq in 2003 and Qadhafi worried, wrongly of course, that he would be next. Power matters and the use of leverage is a major tool in international affairs.

It is generally better to make threats rather than to have to implement them. Yet failing to use power well, emboldening adversaries, and setting off crises is often what leads to war. The steady weakening of the sanctions against Iraq was a major cause of the U.S. decision to invade.

Another example was the mistaken U.S. neutrality in the Iraq-Kuwait crisis of 1990, which Baghdad perceived as giving it a green light to attack and annex its neighbor. That the Obama administration has just repeated this error in the current Iraq-Syria crisis only underlines the sad failure to learn that lesson.

Finally, and most intriguingly, is the ease of fooling—and thus making fools—of the West. Significant here is  the op-ed piece by a high Libyan official in a major U.S. newspaper, denying that he had received a hero’s welcome (the same treatment as a hero that Lebanese and Syrian leaders gave recently to another terrorist who murdered civilians in cold blood).

Incidentally, how many media outlets pointed out the fact that the released prisoner was merely an intelligence officer who took his orders from Qadhafi himself? When a high-ranking intelligence officer is convicted of terrorism, it means that state-sponsored terrorism is going on. Qadhafi has the blood of those 270 Lockerbie victims on his hands.

You can see that’s a lie in the photos but by publishing a factually false op-ed piece—well what do you expect when dealing with repressive, terrorist-sponsoring dictatorships?—the newspaper misinformed its readers.

Over and over again we see these four basic features of contemporary life being illustrated. Why isn’t the lesson learned and implemented by the leaders of democratic states?

One reason: oil deals and maintaining peace and quiet are more important to some of them than are the lives of their citizens.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Cultural Watch: Great Moments in Syrian Cinema; Qadhafi Meets the Real Cuckoo Clock

 By Barry Rubin

A MEMRI story arrives on the new government-controlled Syrian television series—also on Iranian and Hizballah television—showing how Jews plot world conquest while snacking on murdered children.

Although the MEMRI story doesn’t reveal the surprise ending of the new Syrian television series, my sources tell me that it’s this: The Zionists plan the atomic bomb attacks on Japan in 1945 as part of their murderous efforts. That’s not a joke.

In response to my telling him about this, an Arabic-speaking reader notes another Syrian film he once saw. Here’s the plot:

“The eldest son of the family died and everybody was heartbroken. Shortly afterwards the father of the family died and everybody was distraught. For a moment, they were directionless fearing that their enemies may destroy them.

“But then the second son took hold of the reins and everybody was happy again.

“Hmmmmm..... What could that mean............?”

Of course, my correspondent knew precisely how the plot was put together. The Assad family has ruled Syria for almost 40 years. The eldest son (Basil, not Sonny) ran his sports car into a bridge abutment (though in the other film, the rival mob got him at a toll both), the father (dictator Hafiz, not Vito), died.

But then the second son (Bashar, not Michael) came to power.

Or as the song in The Producers, “Springtime for Hitler” put it (slightly modified):

“[Syria] was having trouble
What a sad, sad story
Needed a new leader to restore
Its former glory
Where, oh, where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me.”

And since then it’s been springtime for Bashar and Syria. But there was a controversy in the film: It was the first Syrian film to show an actual kiss. This set off a big debate. As my correspondent puts it:

“Apparently the local authorities were outraged. Jews drinking children's blood? No problems.

A kissing scene? Scandal! Outrage!”

And he concludes quite accurately: “True story. That's the thing about Syria. Anything you made up wouldn't be as bizarre as what actually goes on.”

Meanwhile, as aspiring Syrian filmmakers plan future productions of “Citizen Bashar,” “How the Golan Was Won,” and “West Beirut Story,” Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi continues to pack in the audiences with his Borad impressions.

The Libyan ruler, straight from his success at receiving Britain’s surrender--why should the murder of 270 people in the bombing of an airliner get in the way of an oil deal, that country’s prime minister seemed to say—is now conducting a battle against Switzerland. (Incidentally, anyone see a human rights’ group or trade unions calling for a boycott of Libya or war crimes’ trials for that regime?)

Seems that Qadhafi’s youngest son beat up two servants, an activity frowned on in Switzerland, where he was visiting at the time. Of course, that’s how they behave back home. One former foreign student in Libya told me how he returned to his dorm room early to find his Libyan roommate, leader of the campus secret police apparently, torturing another student.

But here’s the important lesson: Switzerland groveled and apologized. In fact, the Swiss president went to Libya to say how sorry he was for letting his government enforce the country’s laws. Qadhafi, however, reneged on his promise to release two Swiss businessmen being held hostage (obviously, he hasn’t learned about humanitarian releases from the British). There is some indication he will continue his assault on the Swiss.

What is the lesson for world leaders, including President Obama?: Just because you apologize doesn’t mean they still won’t come after you.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

Blood for Oil: Yes, Britain Did Release a Mass-Murdering Terrorist in Exchange for an Oil Deal

By Barry Rubin

On the face of it, growing evidence that the British government released a terrorist who murdered 270 people in exchange for an oil deal is shockingly loathsome.

But that’s not the worst of it.

Here’s the worst of it: Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was not a free-lance terrorist but a Libyan intelligence officer. And the bombing of the Lockerbie plane was a large-scale operation, ordered and organized by the Libyan government and, first and foremost, its madcap dictator Muammar Qadhafi.

So Britain didn’t just release a murderer in exchange for a good oil deal, it released a murderer who had shielded his Mafia kingpin—Qadhafi—so that London could make a deal with the chief terrorist himself, who is soon to arrive at the UN as an honored speaker. Moreover, Megrahi, far from deserving any compassion, had refused to cooperate with the investigation all along. He “took the rap” but then helped make it impossible to catch and punish those most responsible.

Or to put it another way, Britain released a foot soldier who was a cog in the terrorist implementation team in order to make a deal with the man directly responsible for ordering the murders of 270 passengers and many other acts of terrorism, too.

True, it can be pointed out that lots of countries deal with Libya and that Qadhafi's decision to abandon his secret nuclear weapons' program was an element in ending the sanctions against Libya. But part of the price for Libya's escape from isolation was the turning over of Megrahi. So the message is consistent with other Western actions: In the end, we will give you what you want without your having to give up anything (or much).

(My scenario: Tell Megrahi he will never get out and will die in prison unless he spills the beans on the involvement of Qadhafi and other Libyan leaders in the attack. Even then, though, he probably wouldn't say anything. Why, ideological loyalty? No, probably the fact that his family back in Libya would face a pretty grim fate if he told the truth.)   

Basically, the release took place after negotiations between Libya and British Petroleum because, said documents from the prime minister’s office, it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom.” Obviously, a humanitarian decision to release a dying man in order to make his last days more comfortable is not going to be described as in the overwhelming national interest.

Apparently what happened, based on the leaked documents, is that the Libyan government made it clear that unless he was released there would be no deal. Qadhafi was showing gratitude to the man who had protected him from being subjected to charges on the Lockerbie business.

Once the British backed down and agreed to release him, Libya quickly ratified the oil deal.

There are various unconvincing denials that this was a real blood for oil arrangement.

Even approaching this issue from a cynical Middle East perspective, the British government’s behavior is despicable. This follows close on a decision to stop an investigation of a case--BAE Systems
(British Aerospace)--where high-up Saudis were involved in bribery lest this damage UK-Saudi economic relations.

And of course there is the obsessive anti-Israel stances taken (though more by other European states than by Britain) which relate to profits as well. Upcoming is the decision on commercial profits versus higher sanctions on Iran.

Rather than the West—as some rather naively dreamed—spreading democracy, free speech, and tolerance to the Middle East, the Middle East seems to be spreading undemocratic practices, a muzzling of speech, and intolerance to the West.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.