NATO foreign ministers are preparing to discuss imposing a no-fly zone over battle-torn Libya amid some of the fiercest fighting of the uprising against Moamar Gaddafi.
Counter-attacks by Gaddafi loyalists suggest the embattled leader, in power for four decades, will not go as quietly or quickly as fellow leaders in Egypt and Tunisia did in a tide of popular unrest rolling across the Arab world.
The rebellion against the Libyan leader is now in its fourth week.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Gadhafi doesn’t even shy away from bombing his own people. Doesn’t this raise the question of whether the West should intervene militarily?
Schulz: Gadhafi’s methods are brutal. But we have to choose carefully between an emotional reaction, which is understandable, and decisions that could lead to a protracted war. All of the measures that can be taken within the context of the Charter of the United Nations must be considered. I am deliberately emphasizing the word “all” there — in other words, including the military option. But that’s only possible with the involvement of the Security Council and the Arab countries.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why?
Schulz: Military intervention without their involvement could even have the effect of strengthening Gadhafi….
…there’s one thing those optimistic assessments play down: Imposing a no-fly zone is an act of war, and we’re already at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If the United States sent aircraft to patrol the skies of Libya, the first step would have to be to knock out the country’s antiaircraft batteries; that’s an act of war too.
And any time the United States is at war ”” even at the limited level of a no-fly zone ”” the question of further military involvement often follows.
As Colonel Gaddafi, with his army and air force, his tribal supporters and his propaganda machine, begins to counter-attack, only one thing is certain. He is a man utterly without mercy. The history of his regime demonstrates how he deals with opponents: hanging them from lamp-posts, sending death squads to assassinate them as ”stray dogs”, killing them in their jail cells. His offer of amnesty is not believable and will not, in any event, be believed by the insurgents. Will the world stand idly by once he starts to deliver on his threat to ”fight to the last man and woman”?….
The lesson of Iraq ’03 is not that the US and its allies should never use force against another country, but that never again should they do so in breach of international law.
Which begs the big question, namely the circumstances in which there is a right – or, more importantly, a duty – to use force to relieve a humanitarian nightmare….
“At the UN Security Council we are working closely with partners on a contingency basis on elements of a resolution on a no-fly zone, making clear the need for regional support, a clear trigger for such a resolution and an appropriate legal basis,” …[William Hague] told Parliament.
Diplomats at the UN said a resolution could be presented later this week at the earliest, but depended heavily on events on the ground in Libya. A resolution will not be submitted without solid support from the Arab League and the tacit approval of Russia and China, who as permanent members of the UN Security Council can veto resolutions.
“There should be a demonstrable need that the whole world can see, there must be a clear legal basis for such a no-fly zone and there must be clear support from the region, from the Middle East region, from the North African region as well as from the people of Libya themselves,” said Mr Hague.
As in all such mind-bending crises, it is best that the UN Security Council validates whatever course is pursued by the world’s beefiest governments, still inevitably led by the West, which, in turn means the United States, backed by Britain and France, its hardiest allies with a modicum of military muscle. The Americans are fearful of becoming embroiled in yet another distant venture. Among the Europeans, only Britain and Italy seem readier for a more robust involvement…. China and Russia, though they voted for UN sanctions on Colonel Qaddafi in the Security Council, presently balk at a no-fly zone, let alone armed intervention by troops. Turkey, a key member of NATO in Mediterranean or Middle Eastern affairs, is so far dead against, too. So, for the time being, it seems, are the majority of Arab governments.
But if the Libyan regime starts killing people in their thousands””and especially if it uses helicopter gunships or aircraft””diplomatic reluctance should melt away. Too often the world has dithered open-mouthed as evil men have slaughtered Darfuris or Rwandans with impunity. Outsiders, led by the UN, must help Libya’s emerging transitional councils with humanitarian aid. The UN Security Council may yet have to be persuaded to restore peace by invoking the ample power of Chapter VII. And if that proves unattainable, the widest possible coalition of the willing, ideally including Libya’s Arab neighbours, must protect Libyan civilians by arming the opposition and defending them from aerial attack.
Western journalists have lately been tolerated in China, if grudgingly, but the spread of revolution in the Middle East has prompted the authorities here to adopt a more familiar tack: suddenly, foreign reporters are being tracked and detained in the same manner ”” though hardly as roughly ”” as political dissidents.
On Sunday, about a dozen European and Japanese journalists in Shanghai were herded into an underground bunker-like room and kept for two hours after they sought to monitor the response to calls on an anonymous Internet site for Chinese citizens to conduct a “strolling” protest against the government outside the Peace Cinema, near Peace Square in Shanghai.
In Beijing, several plainclothes officers planted themselves on Saturday night outside the home of a Bloomberg News correspondent who was severely beaten by security officers the previous week as he sought to cover a similar Internet-inspired protest there. In a telephone interview, the correspondent said that seven officers in two separate cars had trailed him to a basketball game on Sunday, recording his trip on video the entire time.
For President Obama, who told Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi last week that it was time to quit, the bloodshed and terror in Libya have posed a dilemma that sooner or later confronts every modern American president: whether, and how, to intervene with military force in a distant conflict.
This time, the choice has been made even tougher by history, geography and the peculiar circumstances of Libya’s upheaval: a famously ruthless and unpredictable leader willing to do anything to cling to power, in a conflict that seems as much an African civil war as an Internet-fueled youth revolt of the kind that forced out Arab dictators in Egypt and Tunisia.
Despite skepticism from Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, three influential United States senators from both political parties on Sunday called for the United States to consider carving out a no-flight zone in Libya to prevent Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi from massacring the rebels trying to overthrow him.
But the Obama administration continued to resist such appeals.
“Lots of people throw around phrases like no-fly zone ”” they talk about it as though it’s just a video game,” William M. Daley, the new White House chief of staff, said in at appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” television news program.
It is rare to find someone in public life who accepts responsibility for a mistake as frankly and cogently as Sir Howard Davies did in resigning as director of the London School of Economics over research money from the Gaddafi clan, and he deserves credit for that.
Here, at last, is someone who recognises where the buck stops and draws the appropriate conclusion.
Sir Howard’s departure, however, must not be used as a pretext for sweeping under the carpet awkward questions about foreign money in British academia….
The Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem and Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, the Rt. Revd Suheil Dawani has been denied the renewal of his “Temporary Residency Status” in Jerusalem. This action was taken when the A-5 permits held by himself, his wife and youngest daughter were revoked by the government of Israel, effective 24 September 2010.
Bishop Dawani was elected in 2007 as Bishop of the Diocese and was recognized by the State of Israel as the head of the Episcopal Diocese in accordance with the decision by the State of Israel in 1970 which acknowledged the Diocese as one of the thirteen recognized churches in Israel. All Anglican Bishops of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem who have not held Israeli citizenship have been granted residency permits (A5) to allow them to live in Jerusalem where the Bishop’s residence, diocesan offices and cathedral are located.
Bishop Dawani, his wife and daughters had successfully renewed this permit, as required, in 2008 and 2009. On 24 August 2010, Bishop Dawani went to renew the permit with the Ministry of the Interior and was informed in writing that permits for himself, his wife and daughter would not be renewed because of allegations pending against the Bishop. The letter, in Hebrew, included the following: “Bishop Suheil acted with the Palestinian Authority in transferring lands owned by Jewish people to the Palestinians and also helped to register lands of Jewish people in the name of the Church.” There were further allegations that documents were forged by the Bishop. The letter also stated that Bishop Dawani and his family should leave the country immediately.
The United States could, as my colleague Elliott Abrams points out, arm the rebels. But that policy has its own drawbacks. It may merely increase the carnage, rather than give the rebels the upper hand. Sophisticated weapons require training to use, but we aren’t going to send in trainers.
Equally troubling is the fact that the weapons we want Libyans to use against Qaddafi could wind up in the wrong hands and used against us. There’s a real risk that what succeeds Qaddafi’s regime is not a stable, broad-based government but something that looks more like Somalia.
Asking others to arm the rebels doesn’t solve the problem. Would the Saudis, for instance, be as careful to make sure that weapons don’t fall into the hands of Islamic extremists who are as mad with the West as they are with Qaddafi?
The greenback…is not just America’s currency. It’s the world’s.
But as astonishing as that is, what may be even more astonishing is this: The dollar’s reign is coming to an end.
I believe that over the next 10 years, we’re going to see a profound shift toward a world in which several currencies compete for dominance.
The impact of such a shift will be equally profound, with implications for, among other things, the stability of exchange rates, the stability of financial markets, the ease with which the U.S. will be able to finance budget and current-account deficits, and whether the Fed can follow a policy of benign neglect toward the dollar.
Future historians will long puzzle over how the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, in protest over the confiscation of his fruit stand, managed to trigger popular uprisings across the Arab/Muslim world. We know the big causes ”” tyranny, rising food prices, youth unemployment and social media. But since being in Egypt, I’ve been putting together my own back-of-the-envelope guess list of what I’d call the “not-so-obvious forces” that fed this mass revolt. Here it is….
THE BEIJING OLYMPICS China and Egypt were both great civilizations subjected to imperialism and were both dirt poor back in the 1950s, with China even poorer than Egypt, Edward Goldberg, who teaches business strategy, wrote in The Globalist. But, today, China has built the world’s second-largest economy, and Egypt is still living on foreign aid. What do you think young Egyptians thought when they watched the dazzling opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics? China’s Olympics were another wake-up call ”” “in a way that America or the West could never be” ”” telling young Egyptians that something was very wrong with their country, argued Goldberg….
Ask counterterrorism experts what country in the Arab world worries them most and they say ”” hands down ”” that it is Yemen.
“I would put Yemen at the top of the list in part because there is so much direct concern about al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula [AQAP] trying to target and attack the United States,” says Juan Zarate, a former deputy national security adviser for terrorism. “The reality is that AQAP is a viable network and group. Even if the numbers aren’t in the thousands, just a few hundred of those types with the right kind of leadership training and inspiration can do quite a bit of damage.”
WHAT COULD TRIGGER U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTION?
Possibly a major jump in the death toll. Analysts say massacres of civilians, aerial bombing of civilian targets or a concerted military offensive by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to retake rebel-held territory could be possible triggers.
While the Obama administration is sensitive to criticism that it has been slow to respond more forcefully to Gaddafi’s bloody crackdown on opponents, it has made clear it will not be rushed into making any hasty decisions.
Steven A. Cook:… Egyptians and foreign observers have taken to calling recent events in Egypt a “revolution,” but technically speaking it isn’t — at least not yet. Mubarak is gone, but his military remains in charge of the country, the proposed constitutional changes are limited, and much of the security apparatus and even the once-ruling National Democratic Party remain strong (at least outside of Cairo and Alexandria).
Now, the constitutional committee has sought to go beyond the five constitutional amendments and the deletion of one article to which the military is (and Mubarak was) committed. The committee has now put eight amendments on the table, including an explicit reference to writing a new constitution.
It’s important to remember that transitions to democracy are fraught and that revolutions rarely end the way that the people on the barricades hoped they would.
A ragtag army of opponents to Col. Moammar Gadhafi began moving west toward Tripoli from the east and the U.S. ordered two warships to the Mediterranean Sea, as the prospect of an extended war loomed over Libya.
Morgan Stanley, the world’s top merger adviser, experienced a “very sensitive” break-in to its network by the same China-based hackers who attacked Google Inc.’s computers more than a year ago, according to leaked e-mails from a cyber-security company working for the bank.
The e-mails from the Sacramento, California-based computer security firm HBGary Inc., which identify the first financial institution targeted in the series of attacks, said the bank considered details of the intrusion a closely guarded secret.
The Pentagon is repositioning warships and planes in the waters off Libya to be ready to enforce a no-fly zone or deliver humanitarian aid, military officials said Monday.
By shifting Naval and air forces in the Mediterranean, the U.S. is preparing the groundwork for possible intervention in the civil war that has engulfed Libya. In recent days, U.S. military leaders have been planning for a range of options, in the event the White House steps up the U.S. response.
“I think it’s safe to say as part of that we’re repositioning forces to be able to provide for that flexibility once decisions are made…to be able to provide options and flexibility,” Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters on Monday.
Even as diplomats in Geneva have begun discussions on fresh measures to push Muammar Gaddafi out of power, rebels have overrun several of the Libyan strongman’s strongholds in the western part of the country.
Libyan rebels established a transitional national council to coordinate administration in several cities seized from the Gaddafi regime, and have called on the army to help them take Tripoli, the capital.
The cities now controlled by the opposition include al-Zawiyah, less than 30 miles west of Tripoli, where thousands have taken to the streets to welcome visiting journalists. There was no sign of Libyan security services, who had waged bitter battles with anti-government forces in the town last week, leading to at least 35 deaths.
Rising oil prices could trample prospects for economic recovery in many states, three governors warned on Sunday, as a leading economist said they also threaten the country’s economic comeback.
“Oil prices — I hope don’t go any higher,” said Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. “But everywhere now one hears there’s more than a minor risk they’re going to go a lot higher.”
When strongmen are vulnerable, as now, the priority is to push them towards reform and away from violence. Barack Obama, America’s president, was right to stand behind the protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and now Libya. America’s army chiefs were right to use their influence to restrain Egypt’s armed forces from shooting into the crowds…. And if Mr Qaddafi uses his air force to kill large numbers of his own people, the world would be right to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya.
But most of the time strongmen are not vulnerable, and then the judgment becomes more complicated. Libya, with all its cruelty and its tragic violence this week, shows why.
The ostracism of the 1990s failed to shift Mr Qaddafi from power, despite its moral clarity. But it did help persuade him that he stood to gain from engaging with the world. That opened the door to some shabby deals. The release of one of Mr Qaddafi’s terrorists from a British jail, the sale of weapons to Libya and the elevation of a dictator into a statesman at the G8 all looked unwise at the time. Today they look despicable.
The Libyan ambassador to the UN, who is one of Colonel Gaddafi’s oldest friends, denounced the embattled leader on Friday night and urged the world to punish him.
Abdurrahman Shalgam, an ally of Gaddafi since the pair were teenage radicals in the late 1950s, compared the leader’s actions to those of Pol Pot and Hitler and backed the protesters in Tripoli.
In an emotional speech to the UN Security Council in New York, Mr Shalgam, who had previously remained loyal, said: “Muammar Gaddafi is telling the Libyans ‘either I rule you or I kill you’.” He told the 15 members of the council, who are considering an Anglo-French plan for sanctions against the Gaddafi regime: “We need a courageous resolution from you”.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged the global body’s Security Council to take “decisive action” over the Libya crisis.
He said violations of human rights had been carried out by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, and more than 1,000 had died.
Speaking at a meeting of the Security Council in New York, Mr Ban warned of a growing refugee and food crisis.
The popular revolts shaking the Arab world have begun to shift the balance of power in the region, bolstering Iran’s position while weakening and unnerving its rival, Saudi Arabia, regional experts said.
While it is far too soon to write the final chapter on the uprisings’ impact, Iran has already benefited from the ouster or undermining of Arab leaders who were its strong adversaries and has begun to project its growing influence, the analysts said. This week Iran sent two warships through the Suez Canal for the first time since its revolution in 1979, and Egypt’s new military leaders allowed them to pass.
Saudi Arabia, an American ally and a Sunni nation that jousts with Shiite Iran for regional influence, has been shaken. King Abdullah on Wednesday signaled his concern by announcing a $10 billion increase in welfare spending to help young people marry, buy homes and open businesses, a gesture seen as trying to head off the kind of unrest that fueled protests around the region.
Ministers have identified billions of pounds that Col Muammar Gaddafi and the Libyan regime have deposited in London, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
The funds are expected to be seized within days. The Treasury is understood to have set up a unit to trace Col Gaddafi’s assets in Britain, which are thought to include billions of dollars in bank accounts, commercial property and a £10 million mansion in London.
In total, the Libyan regime is said to have around £20 billion in liquid assets, mostly in London. These are expected to be frozen as part of an international effort to force the dictator from power. A Whitehall source said: “The first priority is to get British nationals out of Libya. But then we are ready to move in on Gaddafi’s assets, the work is under way. This is definitely on the radar at the highest levels.”
While analysts agree that global oil and gas supplies are hardly at risk, as Libya accounts for only 2 percent of world oil output, countries like Italy, France, and Spain relied on Libya in 2010 for as much as 22 percent, 16 percent, and 13 percent of total crude consumption, respectively ”“ a supply not easily replaced on short notice. Europe receives over 85 percent of Libya’s crude exports.
And that’s causing energy planners to reassess the wisdom of counting on North Africa, where southern European governments have invested significantly to decrease dependence on supplies from Russia and Iran, even if Libya’s civil unrest ends with a peaceful resignation of Qadaffi.
“Europe has to choose between becoming more dependent on Russia or the Middle East, or both,” says Herman Franssen, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former chief economist of the International Energy Agency.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is to be extradited to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.
Assange has been fighting extradition since he was arrested and bailed in December. He has consistently denied the allegations, made by two women in August last year.
Howard Riddle, the chief magistrate, delivered his ruling at a hearing at Belmarsh magistrates court in London. It is unlikely to be the end of the matter, however, because an appeal is expected, which would delay the final decision until the summer at the latest.