Cowlesy
03-17-2011, 08:03 PM
Must have had this one ready to go! Great article from a traditional conservative.
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2011/03/17/the-raj-strikes-back/
The Raj Strikes Back
Daniel McCarthy March 17th, 2011
The UN has authorized intervention in Libya—which in practice is going to mean an American-led war. We’re not only talking about a no-fly zone but bombing as well, and “advisers” on top of that. This might be a good time to start a betting pool on when the ground war officially begins. Tomorrow we’ll have an essay by Gary Brecher—the War Nerd—exposing the folly of ostensibly small wars such as this. (The essay comes from our new issue, which went to press last week, but Brecher nails exactly what is happening now.)
Let me make a few impolitic observations at the outset. First, a number of the usual interventionist suspects—here’s looking at you, National Review—held off as long as they thought the anti-Gaddaffi insurgents had a prayer of surviving, even winning. Why was that assumption wrong? Because it turns out Gaddafi has more support in Libya than anyone in the West was willing to believe. The insurgency could have and should have toppled him, if rosy estimates of Libyan solidarity against the dictator were true. But no.
What this means for Western intervention is that we won’t be liberating a country from a universally despised dictator, we will be taking sides in a civil war. Indeed, a civil war in which Gaddaffi is not only the strongest force but quite possibly the most popular one. Nobody wants to believe that, but Gaddafi has not held onto power and so easily rolled up his opposition simply because he has shipped in sub-Saharan mercenaries.
Second, large-scale Western intervention will destroy the fragile Middle East revolution, and the Arab street will long remember this. The West is not talking about intervening against Bahrain, after all, to bail out protesters there. But it’s not just Western selectivity that’s at issue—anyone can see that Gaddafi is far worse than the Bahranis or Yemen’s Saleh. Rather, Western intervention, even if successful, will preclude certain outcomes in Libya. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and other more or less intensely religious forces can vie for power with other protesters (as well as with the still-in-place military establishment, of course). Egypt gets a choice in its destiny. Will Libya under UN/NATO/U.S. peacekeepers? By limiting Libyan options, should Gaddafi fall, to possibilities that are comfortable to the West, our interventionists will discredit whatever pro-Western (or at least, non-anti-Western) revolutionaries there are and enrage the Islamists. The only people who will wind up reassured are the kleptocratic rulers of the Arab world. In effect, what Eric Margolis describes as the American Raj is taking an action that will allow clients like the Saudis to survive, while unruly protesters in Bahrain are stamped out and Libyans are told they may only choose a Karzai — or a Mubarak? — to succeed Gaddafi.
You can read his conclusion at the link here (http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2011/03/17/the-raj-strikes-back/)
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2011/03/17/the-raj-strikes-back/
The Raj Strikes Back
Daniel McCarthy March 17th, 2011
The UN has authorized intervention in Libya—which in practice is going to mean an American-led war. We’re not only talking about a no-fly zone but bombing as well, and “advisers” on top of that. This might be a good time to start a betting pool on when the ground war officially begins. Tomorrow we’ll have an essay by Gary Brecher—the War Nerd—exposing the folly of ostensibly small wars such as this. (The essay comes from our new issue, which went to press last week, but Brecher nails exactly what is happening now.)
Let me make a few impolitic observations at the outset. First, a number of the usual interventionist suspects—here’s looking at you, National Review—held off as long as they thought the anti-Gaddaffi insurgents had a prayer of surviving, even winning. Why was that assumption wrong? Because it turns out Gaddafi has more support in Libya than anyone in the West was willing to believe. The insurgency could have and should have toppled him, if rosy estimates of Libyan solidarity against the dictator were true. But no.
What this means for Western intervention is that we won’t be liberating a country from a universally despised dictator, we will be taking sides in a civil war. Indeed, a civil war in which Gaddaffi is not only the strongest force but quite possibly the most popular one. Nobody wants to believe that, but Gaddafi has not held onto power and so easily rolled up his opposition simply because he has shipped in sub-Saharan mercenaries.
Second, large-scale Western intervention will destroy the fragile Middle East revolution, and the Arab street will long remember this. The West is not talking about intervening against Bahrain, after all, to bail out protesters there. But it’s not just Western selectivity that’s at issue—anyone can see that Gaddafi is far worse than the Bahranis or Yemen’s Saleh. Rather, Western intervention, even if successful, will preclude certain outcomes in Libya. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood and other more or less intensely religious forces can vie for power with other protesters (as well as with the still-in-place military establishment, of course). Egypt gets a choice in its destiny. Will Libya under UN/NATO/U.S. peacekeepers? By limiting Libyan options, should Gaddafi fall, to possibilities that are comfortable to the West, our interventionists will discredit whatever pro-Western (or at least, non-anti-Western) revolutionaries there are and enrage the Islamists. The only people who will wind up reassured are the kleptocratic rulers of the Arab world. In effect, what Eric Margolis describes as the American Raj is taking an action that will allow clients like the Saudis to survive, while unruly protesters in Bahrain are stamped out and Libyans are told they may only choose a Karzai — or a Mubarak? — to succeed Gaddafi.
You can read his conclusion at the link here (http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2011/03/17/the-raj-strikes-back/)