Last updated: 21/06/2011 | 23:24 |  

Ayman Al Zawahiri (Getty Images)

As the situation in Libya moves from uprising to open civil war, John Chisholm argues that the West cannot now abandon the rebels

The past weeks have seen the beginnings of what can only be described as a civil war in Libya. What began as a rebellion has degenerated into a situation with all the makings of a bitter period of civil strife, with elements of the population pitted against Colonel Gaddafi’s loyalists and mercenaries hired from Africa.

When it came to counting dominoes, many observers felt Libya was an unlikely candidate for an uprising. It seemed too tribal, too much in the grip of the ruling family. The opposition was also leaderless in contrast to Jordan or Yemen, for example. All three of these objections have proved to be valid to a degree. The failure of the immediate insurrection can be blamed on the group cohesion of Gaddafi’s inner circle, and the role of the tribes is still important, but this did not stop uprisings in the east infecting towns along the coastal strip. The rebels did lack a party, organisation or political figurehead. Yet there was still an uprising.
Libya is certainly a “bulge” country in terms of population: half of its citizens are under 30. Many are under-employed, and poverty is widespread in a country with considerable oil wealth. The population itself is virtually all to be found along the coastal strip, in towns and cities of varying size, while the desert yawns away to the south, mostly barren punctuated by old Bedouin settlements and new oil-related ones. Pipelines lead to a number of coastal cities where the oil of the country is exported, mostly to Europe.

The fact that Gaddafi has been in power since 1969, has three sons closely involved with the regime and showed no sign of quitting indicated that his regime would continue for many years to come. Allegations of corruption, tight secret police control and all the unpleasantness associated with a dictatorship made it very clear that the only way change was going to be effected was through violence. Said Gaddafi’s statement pledging reform – repeated in many forms throughout the last decade – have been belied by his total loyalty to the regime now it is under threat.
It is also unsurprising that the uprising began in the east, in Tobruk and Benghazi, and then spread westwards. This area has always had a separate identity, being the old province of Cyrenaica under the Turks and Italians before the Second World War. Opposition has always bubbled under the surface here. But the character of the rebellion has been very different from Egypt and Tunisia. Gaddafi had made sure there was no organised opposition, no leaders around whom people could rally, and his state propaganda machine repeatedly circulated the message that there was no alternative. When the uprising began, therefore, it was even more spontaneous, even more street-inspired, than those in Egypt or Tunisia.

It seems to have taken some days for the regime to organise a response. The rebels seemed to be initially very successful, with towns in the east rebelling along with some western centres like Misrata. The situation in Tripoli itself appeared finely balanced, with signs that things could tip against the regime depending on how it responded. In fact, the regime waited a few days while the shape of the uprising became clear and then struck back with a ruthlessness that was simply breathtaking. Libya is heavily armed – weapons, primarily from the former Soviet Union, are abundant, from small arms to tanks, APCs and GRAD rockets. Having led a coup from the army in 1969, Gaddafi had made sure such an event would never happen to him by filleting the regular army, ensuring it was poorly trained and equipped and riddled with informers and placemen. Instead, he had come to rely on three main pillars: the secret police, paramilitary units loyal to his family and African mercenaries paid for with petro-dollars. This support was bolstered during the rebellion by tribes loyal to the regime (the Megrahi, for instance) and urban supporters. Control of the heavy weapons and most of the technical units, along with the naval and air forces, remained with the regime. More mercenaries were hired. With considerable gold reserves, again controlled by the regime, it was unlikely Gaddafi was ever going to run out of money.

The military counter-strike was therefore effective and considerable. With the regime securing Tripoli first, Gaddafi’s forces swept east and west, punching down the coast road and killing anyone who stood in its path. Civilian casualties have been severe; many of the rebels were armed civilians, so distinguishing fighters from civilians would have been difficult. As a result, the regime seems to have taken no chances and plumped for brute force and terror to bring the rebel population centres back in line. This offensive brought them to the gates of Benghazi – the heart of the rebellion – and the world braced itself for a bloodbath.

For the first two weeks the international community was understandably focused on getting its own nationals out. The result was to place the Libyan revolt on the television screen in living rooms across the globe, as reporters flocked to Libya to cover events as they unfolded. This intense scrutiny made it impossible for the regime to snuff the rebellion out, and ensured the rebels had a far greater global reach than would be the case in Yemen, for example. In addition, Gaddafi himself, and his son Said, ensured notoriety when they repeatedly claimed the rebels had been secretly drugged by al-Qaeda, inducing them to rebel. Gaddafi, once described as a “mad dog”, was clearly confirming this assessment yet again, as his blatant psycopathy piled high the dead of his own country alongside a paranoid explanation for the rebellion that no one would ever believe.

It was clear by the end of the second week that the international community was divided. Having evacuated their own citizens, the next question was who to support. The rebels were not going to win on their own, the regime was going to kill as many people as necessary (possibly more) to ensure survival and some countries, notably in Africa, were backing Gadaffi as he had been a wealthy supporter and benefactor.
With loyalist troops approaching Benghazi, it was clear there would be a bloodbath when the city fell. Certain regime members had changed sides to support the rebels in the previous weeks, along with elements of the regular army, and the Europeans and the US were pressurising Gaddafi to go, but the facts on the ground were brutally clear. The choice was either direct military intervention or a Gaddafi victory. Non-intervention was not going to ensure a level playing field, as it was so heavily slanted in the direction of the regime. Senior commentators, such as Lord Owen in the UK, had been raising the prospect of a no-fly zone almost as soon as the conflict began, but the real breakthrough came from the announcement by the Arab League that it too would support such a measure.

This seemed very surprising, as the League is not given to making such clear-cut pronouncements. But Gaddafi had cut himself off from the Arab states many years ago, turning instead to sub-Saharan Africa, and he had been implicated in an assassination attempt against the King of Saudi Arabia in 2009. In other words, although ostensibly Arab, he was not the Arab League’s sort of Arab. Armed with this support, the Security Council pushed through resolution 1979 confirming a no-fly zone and a commitment to use air power to protect civilian centres. Planes were striking Gaddafi’s heavy equipment within hours.

The results on the ground were immediate. Deprived of air power and unable to use heavy equipment so freely, the regime’s forces reeled back westwards again, to the ultra-loyal city of Sirte. Pursuing was the rag-tag collection of armed civilians that passed for the rebel army. Coalition air strikes not only targeted front line forces and the ramshackle Libyan air defence system, but also ammunition dumps deep in the desert which could be used to supply forces threatening civilians. Command and control centres in Tripoli were hit, disrupting the regime’s control over its front line forces. Cries of “foul” came from Russia and China at the broad interpretation that was being placed on resolution 1979, but these were brushed aside by the Coalition. The rebels now had a highly effective air offensive being undertaken effectively on their behalf.

Yet it has not been enough. Demoralised by the demonstration of Western firepower as the regime’s forces were, they have been well-enough organised to pull themselves back together and change tactics. The city of Sirte has proved crucial here. It has acted as the cork in the bottle – the rebels cannot take it as it is too strongly held, and they cannot bypass it as they are simply not organised to undertake such an operation. For the regime it is a base upon which they have fallen back, recovered and then started to punch eastwards again, using their superior organisation, firepower and numbers while borrowing rebel tactics. The regime’s forces have once again swept eastwards, with Ras Lanuf and Bin Jawad changing hands yet again while fighting continues in Uqalya. At the time of writing, the front line seems to have stabilised in the university city of Brega.

It has become clear that, while the Coalition’s air power has degraded the regime’s forces, it has not brought victory for the rebels. There is increasing talk of a military stalemate, with the rebels unable to move beyond Sirte, while the regime’s forces are struggling to move beyond Brega. Logistically the distances involved are a nightmare. Although there are rumours of CIA and UK Special Forces in Libya, possibly training and providing other unspecified assistance to the rebels, it is pretty certain the rebels are not going to win militarily as they are currently constituted and organised. But the US and Europe have hitched their fortunes to the rebels so clearly that they must ensure their victory. Troops on the ground seem out of the question, but the rebels are now asking for arms. The US has not ruled this out in an interpretation of 1979 that stretches it way beyond what Russia and China would have ever accepted. Along with weapons have to go training and organisation – in other words, the only way to bring about a military victory is to turn the haphazard rebel forces into an organised army. This will take time and money. There is no point in waiting for Gaddafi to run out of cash – he has plenty of gold he can sell in Africa if he needs to.

The West and the rebels are pinning their hopes on a regime collapse. The psychological warfare aimed at the regime is considerable, as the CIA and MI6 pump their sources and offer “escape routes” based on the certainty that Gaddafi cannot win in the long run. But the Gaddafi family is playing a similar game, arguing that the Coalition will fracture first and there will be no “long run” because, when the Coalition breaks up, the rebels will prove easy meat. This underlines the calls made by several world players, such as Archbishop Tutu, to accept the realistic option of allowing the Gaddafi family a bolt hole to escape to rather than giving them the option of The Hague or continued fighting. Certainly rumours abound of feelers being put out by the regime to find a way out of the current situation. The extent to which these are true or disinformation to undermine the regime is an open question.

The West’s reaction to this is now crucial. By backing the “Arab street”, with the support of the Arab League, it may be possible to reverse the assumption that the West is totally hostile to the Arab world and content to back dictators who cosy up to the West. If we abandon the rebels to their fate or try to forge a deal with Gaddafi, what little remaining moral leadership the West has will be lost.

John Chisholm is intersec’s International Affairs Correspondent