“NATO appears to have run out of targets in Tripoli, but the Brother Leader is still here, playing chess with his friend Kirsan Illuyzhinov, the President of the World Chess Federation,a man who claims to have been briefly abducted by space aliens in 1997.”
In the early hours of this morning I was woken by the crump of a bomb strike and the low whine of fast jets overhead. NATO was in action over Tripoli.
It wasn’t nearby, and it certainly wasn’t intensive. After living under bombardment in Baghdad in 2003 and Belgrade in 1999, Tripoli seems to me strangely quiet. The sustained bombing of last week has stopped. NATO appears to have run out of targets in Tripoli, but the Brother Leader is still here, playing chess with his friend Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the President of the World Chess Federation, a man who claims to have been briefly abducted by space aliens in 1997.
It feels like Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, when the coalition led by the US imposed a no-fly zone and sanctions which dragged on for 12 years, crippling but never toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein. Could Colonel Gaddafi last that long?
The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, keeps telling us us that “it’s only a matter of time” before he’s ousted, or gives up, or demises in some way or another. But how much time? Twelve years of Saddam’s continued rule was a matter of time too – rather a long time.
Politicians and military leaders in the US and Britain are beginning to get restless.
“How long can we go on as we are in Libya?” asks Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, the head of Britain’s RAF. “Certainly – in terms of NATO’s current time limit that has been extended to 90 days – we are comfortable with that. Beyond that we might have to request the government to make some challenging decisions about priorities.” Meaning: we don’t have the money or the resources to keep doing this. Britain’s defence capacity has been cut right back, and it’s under strain.
Yesterday the US Congress passed a second amendment saying President Obama could not spend money allocated in a defence bill “in contravention of the War Powers Act”. Meaning: a growing number of American politicians are uncomfortable with President Obama’s decision to go ahead with the Libya campaign without consulting Congress. The White House says the President was acting within his powers, but Obama knows that this war doesn’t have widespread popular appeal.
Western leaders are hoping that defections, the gradual degrading of Colonel Gaddafi’s military capability, diplomatic isolation and rebel attacks will make his position unsustainable. But the question may be who blinks first.
The NATO campaign started off as an emergency action to stop slaughter in Benghazi, after Colonel Gaddafi threatened to hunt down those who had risen against him. The spectre of Srebrenica, where a UN force failed to protect lives, was in Western leaders’ minds. It worked, but it was three months ago. NATO and the rebels say Colonel Gaddafi’s departure is a pre-condition for negotiations, but is that position sustainable?
Western leaders have to listen to worried military chiefs and politicians seeking re-election. The Brother Leader does not. His spokesman, Mousa Ibrahim, said to us the other day: “No-one has the right to ask any Libyan to leave his country. Our only option is to stay. Those with options are the invaders.”