The Middle East needs George Bush

by Paul Goodman

The objections to action in Libya carry weight.  We don't have the capability to impose a no-fly zone in Libya on our own.  Such an endeavour might not now stop Gaddafi in any event, and the legal case for it isn't clear-cut.  In any event, Libya has no special links to Britain, and is in itself of little strategic importance to us.  We don't know much about the revolutionary council in Benghazi - its composition, its politics, its aims.  Any western military intervention may well go down badly on the Arab street, especially post-Iraq.  Above all, that military adventure should have taught us the risks of paying much in blood and treasure to achieve little, if anything.  Some may even whisper discreetly that it's in the West's interest for the dictator to win: better Gaddafi in Tripoli, they'll say, than Islamists.

On paper, this case looks solid.  In practice, it starts giving way as soon as it's probed.

Since the start of the year, Mubarak has fallen in Egypt and Ben Ali has fled Tunisia.  Civil war rages in Libya and Saudi troops are in Bahrain.  As I've written before, it's far too early to know how events will turn out: whether nothing much changes, liberal democracy comes about, Islamist governments take over, or there's no clear pattern.  It's evident, however, that time will sooner or later run out for the autocrats, such as Assad in Syria and King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia: they can't ultimately see off both democrats and Islamists.  We want the former to win, for the sake of peace and prosperity.  Iran wants the latter to triumph, and impose revolutionary clerical dictatorships throughout the Middle East.  So although Libya is indeed in itself of little strategic importance to us, it has wider significance as part of a bigger picture.

Part of that picture is the call of the Arab League and the Gulf Co-operation Council for a no-fly zone in Libya.  This decision would have been unimaginable as recently as last year: until the fall of the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt, Arab rulers tended to stick together in public.  Syria and Saudi Arabia were opposed the no-fly zone call, but Egypt helped to drive it through.  This was a sign of real change.  Egypt's military rulers were responding to the mood on the street, which is, by and large, opposed to the autocrats.  Western intervention, therefore, wouldn't necessarily go down badly with the peoples of the region.  When they watched the Iraq war, they saw a Arab country being invaded by western ones.  When they look at Libya, they see an Arab dictator trying to crush an Arab revolt.

So to impose the template of Iraq on Libya is simply wrong: a category error.  And it's a truism to say that we don't have the capacity to impose a no-fly zone on the country, because no-one's asking us to.  Only one country has the capacity to do so: namely, the United States, working in co-operation with the Arab League and others, including us.  We can, as Sir Malcolm Rifkind and Mark Pritchard have argued, arm the opposition.  We can also, as Quilliam has said, offer shared intelligence and military co-operation to the Interim Military Council, representatives of which have met Clinton and Sarkozy at the G8 (and are most unlikely, given their ex-army and regional components, to share the aims of the Islamists).  But only America has the capacity to form an effective coalition against Gadaffi.

American voters are against intervention.  As many of them see it, European countries first try to leave American troops to shoulder the burden in Afghanistan - aiming to withdraw their own - and then ask the United States to fight another war in Libya.  The Defense Department shares the reservations of our own Defence Ministry while the State Department, like our own Foreign Office, is more sensitive to the case for military action.  In these circumstances, a President must decide.  Obama has already proved himself to be no Ronald Reagan over Iran, but he doesn't have to be one over Libya.  All he has to be is George Bush - the older, that is, not the younger.  After all, it was the first President Bush who formed a military and diplomatic alliance with most Arab counties to support the expulsion of Saddam from Kuwait.

And this time round, Obama has Arab leaders all but knocking at his door to ask the United States to help impose a no-fly zone.  So there turns out to be an Iraq parallel with Libya, after all: but it's with the first Gulf War, not the second.  True, that action was backed up by a UN resolution, but although one's desirable in this case, it's not essential, since there's a legal case for intervention based on Gaddafi's atrocities against his own people.  Obama, of course, might well retort that nation-building in Libya would be harder than expelling Saddam from Kuwait.  But as he weighs up the options, time's running out for the opposition in Libya.  As Partrick Mercer's said, it will soon be too late to impose a no-fly zone, and Gaddafi is advancing on Benghazi as eyes abroad are fixed on Japan.

Admittedly, the world won't end if he does, and the revolt is crushed.  But Arab leaders and peoples will draw a sharp conclusion - that this administration is rudderless in the face of events, helpless either to protect long-term allies such as Mubarak or stop opponents like Gaddafi.  Whatever forces of opposition that remain in Libya that remain will be likely to turn to Iran - currently flexing its muscles about Bahrain - as to the west.  As the Middle East waits to be rocked by the next unexpected event, Obama will have sent a signal of passivity, bewilderment and inertia.  A week or so ago, David Cameron's support for a no-fly zone looked isolated.  Now, with the Arab League on board, he has company and, with France, is leading the diplomatic charge in New York.  But while he acts, Obama dithers.  How much safer the world would be with George Herbert Walker Bush back in the White House.