Libya: The liberal way of war

Gaddafi may have seemed a plausible victim for the latest intervention. Compared with Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where far worse atrocities are committed or threatened, Libya passed the usual tests. It was small, bombable, had “war on terror” connotations and was not sub-Saharan Africa, which, Sierra Leone aside, always seems beyond the interventionists’ pale. Libya was “doable”. It may yet be done. As the mission creeps, as all missions do, something called victory will demand some sort of ground troops to aid the rebel cause. There would be dreadful bloodshed, because bombs and shells always miss their targets. If Gaddafi can somehow be killed or otherwise disposed of, there will be some rudimentary puppet state, probably a sitting target for Muslim fundamentalists, gangsters and terrorists. Libya could be an oil-rich Kosovo.

I want nothing to do with this. I would send any amount of humanitarian aid to those in distress. But the dispute of eastern Libya with Gaddafi is not my dispute. As for the interventionists, if they want Gaddafi gone, as they constantly claim, they should get on with it, and not hand him yet another victory “over fascist imperialism” as they did by bombing him in 1986…

The trouble with liberal interventionism is that it lacks the courage of its neo-imperialist conviction. It claims to know what is best for the world and glories in bombing to get its way. But when push comes to shove it backs off. So we have just a few bombs on the road to Benghazi, one Tomahawk on Gaddafi’s compound, a few shells to terrorise Sirte, a handful of RPGs to keep the rebels from despair. It makes us feel good. If this is liberalism, you can keep it.