LAST week, I introduced this week’s topic by mentioning, among other things, the fact that the situation in Bahrain had escalated with over 30 protestors being killed by state security forces.
Outside of simply bringing attention to the atrocity, my point was to contrast the relative silence of the West, as opposed to the rising anti-Gaddafi rhetoric when it came to the virtually identical situation in Libya. Before I go on, I would just like to briefly state that the American system of democracy, the separation of the powers – executive, legislative, and judiciary – is something worthy of emulation. It works for America, in spite of lapses in its actual application.

To return to my main point, hours after I sent the last article, the first reports of NATO’s military intervention in the Libyan situation began to hit the Internet.

In contrast to the US invasion of Iraq a decade ago, on the surface of it, there does actually appear to be a coalition of the willing in this case.

The intervention is keeping with UN Security Council Resolution 1973 dealing specifically with the Libyan crisis, a resolution proposed not by the United States but by France, the UK, and Lebanon, and which saw the support of a solid two thirds of the UNSC, with five abstentions, though no objections.  

And there isn’t some tenuous case as there was in Iraq; Gaddafi appears to want to defend his sovereign rule by any means necessary, including the employment of mercenaries.  The resolution, among other things, “strengthens the arms embargo and particularly action against mercenaries, by allowing for forcible inspections of ships and planes”.

What concerns me is that section which states the resolution: “…authorises all necessary means to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas, except for a ‘foreign occupation force’.”

For me, the part preventing a ‘foreign occupation force’ notwithstanding, American orchestration is undoubtedly behind the diplomatic efforts that resulted in Resolution 1973. 

While an increasing number of countries – already double George W. Bush’s Coalition of the Willing at its peak – has signed on to the Intervention mission, the NATO effort is being commanded by America and its primary ally in Iraq, the UK.  

The intervention in Libya, supposedly in the interest of civilians, falls completely in keeping with the rhetoric coming out of Washington recently.

Further, while there may not be any actual foreign forces occupying Libya, NATO’s actions in the past week have gone way beyond protecting civilian lives. 

America is clearly playing a game of regime change, going beyond the enforcement of a no-fly zone to destroying grounded Libyan aircraft and other military vehicles belonging to Gaddafi’s forces.

And, as has happened with Iraq, the US media has largely been crucial in parroting, without an ounce of criticism, the statements coming out of the White House.

What’s wrong with that you might ask.  Well, in contrast, Obama has been urging the Bahrain monarchy, a Sunni royal family running a country made up primarily of Shiite Muslims, to simply have “some restraint” in its response to the protests. 

With dozens of civilians dead, the U.S. has somehow refused to condemn the actions of Bahrain’s government, even as the Saudis has been sending in support forces to back up a military that has been murdering its own people.

What should be noted here is that Bahrain is a close ally of Saudi Arabia, a virtual protectorate in fact, and the Saudis – America’s biggest supplier of oil – have enjoyed a relationship with Washington seconded perhaps only by America’s continued tolerance and encouragement of Israel.

We can turn now to Syria, where Bashar al-Assad’s government is also cracking down on people protesting his rule. While the number of civilian casualties doesn’t match Bahrain, there have been casualties and a deafening silence from Washington when it comes to protesting the actions of one of its key allies in the Middle East.

The point I am trying, hopefully successfully, to illustrate is that today’s situation in the Middle East clearly shows that the American touting support for democracy is convenient at best; whenever democratic movements come up against US strategic or economic interests, democracy places a distant second.

Wasn’t Mubarak, formerly a longstanding American ally, the same dictator when he visited Washington not so recently?  Aren’t the people of Bahrain and Syria owed the same type of liberty and protection that those in Libya are being provided?

And, to refer to a more longstanding humanitarian crisis, are the Palestinians guaranteed protections from Israel?

Which brings me to another inconvenient truth about America’s ‘enabling’ of democracy around the world. 

I don’t want to trivalise Saddam’s crimes against humanity – his 1988 campaign against the Kurds took around 50,000 lives. 

But if human lives lost are any indicator of a system going wrong, consider that there have been a total of 100,000 (this figure may be much higher) civilian deaths coming as a direct result of sectarian violence that has gripped that country since Bush’s “mission accomplished” fiasco. 

Added to that, the quality of life for the every-day Iraqi citizen has fallen considerably, compared to before the restoration of democracy; from the wearing away of religious freedoms to the lack of basic services in some places to the every day fear of insurgent attacks, Iraq is far from the paradise promised by Bush. 

And there are indications that the trend is going to continue in some of the countries recently ‘liberated’ by protests facilitated by American critical, and perhaps actual, support. They are destroying Christian churches in Egypt for example, something that was absent under Mubarak’s rule.  An article I read in the Washington Post, written by Gideon Rose, analyses the situation brilliantly:

“Letting events play out would indeed have yielded some sort of tragedy (although almost surely not the “massacre” of “100,000 people,” as National Security Council staffer Dennis Ross has claimed).

But the humanitarian issue emerged only because of a prior and larger political issue. The rebels are at risk of retaliation by Gaddafi because they rose up against his regime and were unable to topple it on their own. His opponents will be at risk so long as Gaddafi remains in power.

The true question at hand, therefore, is who will rule Libya? Whatever the Obama administration may be telling itself, by intervening to help one side in a civil war, it is now embroiled in Libya’s political future to a vastly greater extent than it was two weeks ago.

And according to an article in the UK Daily Telegraph, one of the rebel commanders in Libya has admitted that “jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.” In short, America has now found itself helping a military force which employs fighters loyal to the very group, al Qaeda, which was responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks.

I predict that the aftermath of the Libyan regime change is the same sort of bloody sectarian mess that has plagued Iraq and is now resurfacing in Afghanistan.

When Obama was elected to the US Presidency, the world hoped for a shift in US foreign policy, a fundamental shift and not window dressing. We were promised fairness and justice in the execution of American foreign policy, even as the country protected its own interests.

“Our security,” Obama said in his inaugural speech, “emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.”

If America’s actions in the Middle East are any indication, that justness is only premised on convenience; the example being set is a poor one if anything; and humility and restraint are being asked of allies that clearly have no intention of showing either.

PULL QUOTE:
If America’s actions in the Middle East are any indication, that justness is only premised on convenience; the example being set is a poor one if anything; and humility and restraint are being asked of allies that clearly have no intention of showing either.

PULL QUOTE:
I predict that the aftermath of the Libyan regime change is the same sort of bloody sectarian mess that has plagued Iraq and is now resurfacing in Afghanistan.