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I've been absolutely glued to news about the popular uprisings in the Arab world over the past few weeks. Tunisia was somewhat under my radar, but once that revolution succeeded and the spirit of it began to spread throughout the region I was electrified. This may wind up being one of the most significant political developments we've seen for a very long time; if the ripples keep spreading, I could even imagine it being the biggest upheaval since the fall of communism.
The fall of Mubarak in Egypt was a huge turning point, and that success obviously galvanized the entire region. It's hard to overstate the symbolic value of his removal: not only was a longstanding dictator of a major regional power vanquished, but that goal was achieved by the Egyptian people acting entirely on their own. I've seen some commentators claim that these revolutions may represent the first time that the Arab people themselves have wielded direct political power ever, and that these are the first truly post-colonial political events in the region (for some definition of "the region", anyway). Even if these uprisings don't achieve all their goals, even if some of them "fail", it's precisely this sort of movement that has served to advance the spirit of democracy among a population throughout history. (I've read a very nice article on Slate making this point in a comparison of these revolutions to the revolutions across Europe in 1848.) This is Big Deal stuff.
It's been a remarkably complicated situation for the US and the Obama administration the whole time: Egypt was a precarious balancing act from an international relations standpoint. Which is better for advancing US interests around the world: standing by our loyal allies, or standing by our basic principles? I've got to come down on the "principles" side, but it's not an easy choice. (Fun aside: Alma College has occasional Saturdays when faculty interview prospective students for scholarship consideration. When I participated a few weeks ago, I used this scenario as one of my questions to assess how the students think about this sort of dilemma.)
Popular uprisings continue to simmer across the Arab world, but Libya has now become very much the focus of the movement... and I'm terribly worried about how it's going to turn out. Ghaddafi is the first of the affected dictators to be willing to slaughter his own people, but the rebels are hanging on. I expect that both the people and the leaders of other nations in the region are watching very closely to see how this plays out, and I've felt from the start that this may well make or break the entire regional movement. If the people succeed in ousting Ghaddafi despite his use of violence (which, I expect, would end in a very messy way for Ghaddafi personally), I fully expect the dominoes to truly start to fall throughout the Arab world (and quite possibly with less bloodshed than we've seen in Libya). But if Ghaddafi hangs on (whether by crushing the rebels or just by maintaining a tenuous grip on power through an extended civil war), the people of neighboring countries will be demoralized, and I fear that the leaders of those countries will take Ghaddafi's example as a model of what works to maintain their power. This is a truly delicate moment.
And because of the danger of the situation, there is beginning to be some pressure for outsiders to intervene in Libya. As discussed in this New York Times article, some of the Libyan revel leaders are considering asking the UN to provide air strikes against Ghaddafi's forces. And of course, if it came to that, "the UN" would probably wind up meaning "the US". For that matter, there may already be pressure on the Obama administration to take military action to make sure that Libya achieves its freedom: getting rid of Ghaddafi and seeing the rebels establish a democracy there would be strongly in the US's interests.
But oh my word, I'm terrified of the thought of the US getting militarily involved there. I hadn't realized until very recently that it was a possibility. I mean, yes, getting rid of Ghaddafi would be fantastic (and if he remains in power now, it will come at a huge cost in blood), but this really shouldn't be our job! Not only are we already overextended militarily, but (as already noted) there is tremendous value in the Arab world seeing every one of these revolutions as their own achievement. If we were to intervene in Libya, we'd run the risk not just of devaluing the Libyan people's achievements but in retroactively cheapening Egypt and Tunisia, too. Worst of all, it's not clear how well our military could handle three serious regional conflicts at once, and (as my friend Will points out) even if they could pull it off there would be entirely too much temptation for other hostile regimes to take advantage of our overextended status.
So I'm not sure what our course of action should be here. If we're somehow forced to get involved, maybe there's a way to provide some support to the rebels in Libya without getting directly involved ourselves, but I don't really see it. (I've heard that Ghaddafi's forces rely heavily on foreign mercenaries; could we maybe create some sort of naval and/or border blockade to insist that "the people of Libya must be allowed to sort this out without foreign interference"? It would be a fine line to walk, and it wouldn't diminish the cost to our own military at all.) The best case scenario would be for Ghaddafi to recognize that he's lost control and to flee the country of his own accord. But that doesn't seem to be his style.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
The fall of Mubarak in Egypt was a huge turning point, and that success obviously galvanized the entire region. It's hard to overstate the symbolic value of his removal: not only was a longstanding dictator of a major regional power vanquished, but that goal was achieved by the Egyptian people acting entirely on their own. I've seen some commentators claim that these revolutions may represent the first time that the Arab people themselves have wielded direct political power ever, and that these are the first truly post-colonial political events in the region (for some definition of "the region", anyway). Even if these uprisings don't achieve all their goals, even if some of them "fail", it's precisely this sort of movement that has served to advance the spirit of democracy among a population throughout history. (I've read a very nice article on Slate making this point in a comparison of these revolutions to the revolutions across Europe in 1848.) This is Big Deal stuff.
It's been a remarkably complicated situation for the US and the Obama administration the whole time: Egypt was a precarious balancing act from an international relations standpoint. Which is better for advancing US interests around the world: standing by our loyal allies, or standing by our basic principles? I've got to come down on the "principles" side, but it's not an easy choice. (Fun aside: Alma College has occasional Saturdays when faculty interview prospective students for scholarship consideration. When I participated a few weeks ago, I used this scenario as one of my questions to assess how the students think about this sort of dilemma.)
Popular uprisings continue to simmer across the Arab world, but Libya has now become very much the focus of the movement... and I'm terribly worried about how it's going to turn out. Ghaddafi is the first of the affected dictators to be willing to slaughter his own people, but the rebels are hanging on. I expect that both the people and the leaders of other nations in the region are watching very closely to see how this plays out, and I've felt from the start that this may well make or break the entire regional movement. If the people succeed in ousting Ghaddafi despite his use of violence (which, I expect, would end in a very messy way for Ghaddafi personally), I fully expect the dominoes to truly start to fall throughout the Arab world (and quite possibly with less bloodshed than we've seen in Libya). But if Ghaddafi hangs on (whether by crushing the rebels or just by maintaining a tenuous grip on power through an extended civil war), the people of neighboring countries will be demoralized, and I fear that the leaders of those countries will take Ghaddafi's example as a model of what works to maintain their power. This is a truly delicate moment.
And because of the danger of the situation, there is beginning to be some pressure for outsiders to intervene in Libya. As discussed in this New York Times article, some of the Libyan revel leaders are considering asking the UN to provide air strikes against Ghaddafi's forces. And of course, if it came to that, "the UN" would probably wind up meaning "the US". For that matter, there may already be pressure on the Obama administration to take military action to make sure that Libya achieves its freedom: getting rid of Ghaddafi and seeing the rebels establish a democracy there would be strongly in the US's interests.
But oh my word, I'm terrified of the thought of the US getting militarily involved there. I hadn't realized until very recently that it was a possibility. I mean, yes, getting rid of Ghaddafi would be fantastic (and if he remains in power now, it will come at a huge cost in blood), but this really shouldn't be our job! Not only are we already overextended militarily, but (as already noted) there is tremendous value in the Arab world seeing every one of these revolutions as their own achievement. If we were to intervene in Libya, we'd run the risk not just of devaluing the Libyan people's achievements but in retroactively cheapening Egypt and Tunisia, too. Worst of all, it's not clear how well our military could handle three serious regional conflicts at once, and (as my friend Will points out) even if they could pull it off there would be entirely too much temptation for other hostile regimes to take advantage of our overextended status.
So I'm not sure what our course of action should be here. If we're somehow forced to get involved, maybe there's a way to provide some support to the rebels in Libya without getting directly involved ourselves, but I don't really see it. (I've heard that Ghaddafi's forces rely heavily on foreign mercenaries; could we maybe create some sort of naval and/or border blockade to insist that "the people of Libya must be allowed to sort this out without foreign interference"? It would be a fine line to walk, and it wouldn't diminish the cost to our own military at all.) The best case scenario would be for Ghaddafi to recognize that he's lost control and to flee the country of his own accord. But that doesn't seem to be his style.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
no subject
Personally, I think this is one of the few times the US military should be involved in democratizing a country -- when the people are motivated enough to overthrow a dictator on their own, and all they need is a little cover. The trouble with Iraq (among other things) is that neither the US nor the Iraqis outside the Baath party were ready to take over when we came in and removed Saddam.
no subject
no subject
Also, given the questionable (outright disgusting) history of the USA supporting abusive regimes if they behaved in a US friendly fashion diplomatically nearby (Egypt) and around the world, I think we owe it to the opprossed people of the world to assist them. Not to mention that it might be a good idea to have those new goverments have reason to consider us favorably, to help balance out their legitment reason to hate us.