What Drone Or Traitor Will Rid Us Of This Turbulent Colonel?

Starting tomorrow, the UN will provide regular air service connecting Malta, Cairo and Benghazi. I take that as a big indicator that the division of Libya into an eastern rebel-held territory, and a western regime-controlled state, is setting in for the long term.

An academic specialist in Libyan history has sketched out four scenarios for how the current stalemate might be resolved. None of them sound good.

The first involves a more intense support for the ability of the rebels, aided by NATO power, to steadily move westward and unify the country by overpowering the province of Tripolitania and replacing the Gaddafi regime. In light of the checkered history (of very long standing) between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (where the rebel movement is now located), this scenario would open old wounds. When the Kingdom of Libya was created in 1951, Tripolitania resentfully agreed to be pushed together by the Great Powers into a single political entity ruled by a monarchy with its roots in Cyrenaica. The resentment within Tripolitania, where support for Gaddafi has traditionally been the strongest, would be enormous if once more a government were foisted upon it either by a Cyrenaican-led rebel movement or through the support of the international community—a likely possibility under this scenario.

A second scenario would be to simply allow Libya to separate into two smaller states, focused around Tripolitania in the west and Cyrenaica in the east. This would, however, leave Gaddafi in control of part of the country—obviously not an ideal solution in light of the possibilities it would afford him to attempt the subversion and destabilization of Cyrenaica, or to engage in a number of similarly destabilizing ventures in the region and beyond. In addition, this scenario would require a commitment from the international coalition to protect Cyrenaica—certainly not a prospect either the United States or the European Union would be enamored of.

A third possible scenario involves a somewhat patient process of gradually undermining the credibility and prospects of the Gaddafi regime over time. This means systematically undercutting the regime’s traditional methods of using patronage for its survival as international sanctions take hold and Gaddafi’s financial resources are depleted, and hoping that eventually internal desertions and perhaps a palace coup would take place within the inner circles of the regime.

-- snip --

The final scenario is one that may prove the least attractive for many Libyans, but more attractive to the many parties now involved in the conflict. It is perhaps also the most promising for the future of the country, and would certainly minimize the dislocations and potential infighting some of the other scenarios entail. It consists essentially of a diplomatic compromise whereby Gaddafi (and his family and closest confidants) would depart into exile. The range of countries willing to accept this sordid entourage would be tiny, made even smaller by the fact that the Libyan leader would undoubtedly try to find asylum in a country that does not recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court.

The two most likely scenarios - i.e., the rebels win and bring on a Cyrenaican rule over the Tripolitanian vanquished, or the two parts of Libya stay divided with the international community inevitably seen as backing the Cyrenaican half - both lead to long-term conflict.

The last scenario - Qaddafi chooses to go into graceful retirement and everyone lets him - is impossible to imagine.

That leaves us hoping the international community can increase pressure on the regime until the next Colonel or Captain launches a coup, and Qaddafi is removed from office via the 9mm referendum. It is a dismal situation when that is the best outcome we can expect.

Nevertheless, that appears to be what NATO and US officials are trying to bring about, directly or indirectly. According to Defense Secretary Gates this week, "we are not targeting him specifically, but" we are bombing all the structures and bunkers where Qaddafi might be present, and obviously we would be very relieved if he happened to be inside one of them when it is destroyed. A bonus, as it were. Or, an ambitious character within his trusted circle could whack him out. Either way, Qaddafi is removed but the rebels didn't do it, leaving the possibility of a political reconciliation between the eastern and western halves of Libya.

NATO Officials Acknowledge Frustration in Libya Campaign:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates stood on the steps of the Pentagon late Tuesday alongside Liam Fox, his counterpart from Britain, America’s closest ally. Questions swirled here, in Europe and across North Africa whether NATO was specifically trying to find and kill Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, with airstrikes.

Mr. Gates patiently repeated the alliance’s longstanding policy that it was attacking only legitimate military targets in Libya in order to degrade the ability of the government’s forces to threaten its civilian population. There was no targeted assassination effort under way.

“We have considered all along command-and-control centers to be a legitimate target, and we have taken those out elsewhere,” Mr. Gates said.

“Those centers are the ones that are commanding the forces that are committing some of these violations of humanitarian rights, such as in Misurata,” he added. “We are not targeting him specifically, but we do consider command-and-control targets legitimate targets wherever we find them.”

That careful, diplomatic language from the defense secretary came as administration officials and NATO officers in Europe confirmed that the alliance plans to step up attacks on the palaces, headquarters and communications centers that Colonel Qaddafi uses to maintain his grip on power.

-- snip --

“Now we are going after his rear echelon,” the NATO officer said. “We are going after his ability to command and control his forces — his headquarters, and command posts, his communications – all those things that allow him to coordinate his attacks at the front.”

Let's be blunt and just state that we are going after him, and not just his palaces, HQs and command posts. By not saying that in so many words, we are in the insincere position of a modern day King Henry II, wondering aloud "who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" and then playing innocent when someone takes us up on that.

Fun historical fact: Although Henry II is usually quoted as saying "who will rid me" etc., his contemporary biographer Edward Grim, who was so close to the event that he was wounded when that turbulent priest, Thomas Becket, was killed, recorded the King's words as:

"What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?"

Of course, by "drones" he wasn't referring to unmanned aerial vehicles. Still, that's a nice coincidence. We are depending on exactly those same things today to rid us of Qaddafi.

"There Is No More Grand Tour" For Brits In Florence

Austerity measures and global diplomatic realignment have trumped literary romanticism, it seems, and the British Foreign and Colonial Office has decided to close its consulate in Florence.

The New York Times has a nice article on this sorta-kinda historic happening. But if you, like me, refuse to comply with the NYT's new paywall, you are out of luck. OR ELSE you can go to the NYT World Edition, which for some reason is still available free online, the way God intended information to be.

Here it is, Britain to Close a Consulate With a View:

FLORENCE, Italy — It has seen the rise of the Grand Tour and the package tour, the romance of E. M. Forster’s “Room With a View” and the tensions of two world wars. And now, after five centuries, the British Consulate in Florence is closing its doors, a victim of budget cuts and the currents of history.

Once a haven for traveling aristocrats and dreamy Britons escaping the strictures of home for the looser ways of Italy, in recent years the consulate has dealt more with lost passports than lost morals. But it holds a central place in the history of British-Italian relations, and news of its closing has been taken as an affront here.

The mayor of Florence has expressed regrets, one Florentine aristocrat says she hopes to raise the issue at the royal wedding, and a leading British historian here has questioned Britain’s diplomatic priorities.

As the sun streamed through the windows of his office overlooking the Arno River on a recent morning, David Broomfield, the man who will most likely be the last British consul of Florence, treated the news wistfully. “It’s not like I’m the last governor leaving the old colony with a feather in his hat,” Mr. Broomfield said. “But it’s the end of an important tradition here for 500 years.” There was an English diplomatic presence in Florence as far back as the 1450s.

Across the room, lists of his predecessors hung framed on the wall in neat calligraphy. They begin in 1698 with Sir Lambert Blackwell, “consul at Leghorn,” as the port city of Livorno was then known, and continue through Sir Horace Mann, who as consul in Florence from 1760 to 1786 turned the consulate into a salon, receiving all Britons of rank who passed through the city.

On one panel, a line of devastating understatement reads, “No British representation in Florence 11 June 1940 to 1 Feb. 1945.” Every year, the city holds a memorial service for the first British soldier killed in the Allied liberation of Florence.

-- snip --

“Obviously, I’m very sorry and sad, because the British Consulate in Florence has a very unique and beautiful history,” said the mayor, Matteo Renzi. But, he added, “The world changes, and it’s clear that in the era of EasyJet and Ryanair there’s no more Grand Tour.”

-- snip --

For its part, the British Foreign Office “keeps the future shape of its network under constant review,” a spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “We are looking both to broaden and deepen our overseas network, particularly to increase our presence in emerging powers.”

Indeed, since 2007, the Foreign Office has opened consulates in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo; Antananarivo, Madagascar; and Juba, Sudan; and closed them in Durban, South Africa; Geneva; Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Nagoya, Japan; and Aleppo, Syria; among other places.

Britain is also closing its consulate in Venice, meaning that Britons who need help or lose passports will have to travel to Rome, Milan or Naples for assistance.

“From a symbolic point of view, I’m very, very sad,” Mr. Broomfield said. “From a practical point of view, I understand putting consular resources in three posts, not five.”

Maintaining five consulates in Italy is obviously not in the cards for a nation undergoing severe economic contractions. Which makes me wonder all over again why the U.S. maintains some embassies and consulates in places of little importance to us, such as Burmuda. They would seem to be prime candidates for the budget chopping block.

Ironic Phase Of The Day

The WaPo had this zinger in an article today on ballistic underwear for U.S. troops in Afghanistan:

The Pentagon this month put out a rush order solicitation, spotted by our colleague Walter Pincus, for “27,500 ballistic undergarments” for $2 million, noting that “ballistic underwear is currently being used by British forces” in Afghanistan “and they have significantly less injuries” to their privates as a result.

I'm sure their Corporals, Sergeants, and Other Ranks have benefited as well.

Everybody In The Whole Cell Block / Was Dancin' To The Taliban Rock

Monday's break-out of Taliban prisoners from Kandahar’s main prison was "a blow to Afghan and American efforts to secure and modernize the Sarposa prison, which stands adjacent to a new U.S.-funded “rule of law” center to process prosecutions," according to the WaPo.

I'll say it was. There ought to be plenty of egg on lots of faces. The only thing that could make it worse would be if we found out USAID indirectly funded the construction of the tunnel.

That's not as improbable as it might seem. The tunneling began in a construction compound outside the prison, and the tunnelers needed serious tools for digging, materials to brace up the tunnel, trucks to dispose of the excavated dirt, instruments to track the position and guide the direction of the tunnel so that it came up inside a cell in the political section of the prison, etc. What are the odds that those industrious Talibs acquired at least some of that equipment and expertise from the many U.S.-funded construction jobs that were going on all around them during the four or five months they were working? I'd say pretty good.

There are some interesting details about this insurgent infrastructure project here:

The starting point was a compound directly opposite the prison that from the outside looked like any one of hundreds of building companies that have popped up in areas awash with reconstruction dollars.

But the metal and concrete beams made there were not for building US-sponsored projects. Instead they were used to support a part of the tunnel that went directly underneath a section of Afghanistan’s most important road: the stretch of Highway One running between the cities of Kandahar and Herat.

According to one of the escapees (whose numbers could dramatically tip the odds in favour of the insurgents on the eve of this year’s “fighting season”), the tunnel was of sufficient diameter and high enough for the prisoners to stand upright for most of their walk to freedom.

Sections were lit by electric light and ventilated with fans, he said.

Bad as this break-out was, there have been worse, including at that same prison:

In the Middle East and Central Asia, when suspected militants go to jail, they don't necessarily stay there. This was very much in evidence this week when the Taliban built 1,000 feet of underground tunnels (shown above) to free nearly half the prisoners at the Sarposa prison in Kandahar. It was a brazen feat to be sure, though not even the largest break in the history of that prison.

That honor goes to the 2009 Taliban raid that freed nearly 1,200 prisoners from Sarposa, including 350 Taliban members. That break involved two truck bombs crashing into the front gates followed a group of fighters armed with RGPs and automatic rifles. Security upgrades were made after the attack and an American military officer told reporters just this year that the only way to break in would be would be to “put a nuke on a motorcycle.” Or, you know, build a really long tunnel -- a method that was a pop culture cliché by 1963.

Foreign Policy's blog has an entertaining look back at some of the Great Prison Breaks of the War on Terror today. Read about them here.

P.J. Crowley Has A New Career

And, naturally, he's tweeting about it:

I look forward to teaching a media and national security policy course next academic year @DickinsonCol, @PennStateLaw and @ArmyWarCollege.

See more here.

Ryan Crocker to Kabul?

Reuters is reporting that:

President Barack Obama is likely to nominate veteran diplomat Ryan Crocker as the next U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, a source familiar with the pending appointment said on Tuesday.

-- snip --

The move would pair Crocker again with General David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan who had served in Iraq at the same time as Crocker.

Associated Press is saying the same:

The diplomatic heft Crocker may be able to bring to the post and his experience running the civilian side of a war alongside Petraeus could help Obama cement recent military gains ahead of the planned withdrawal. But bringing back the duo that helped salvage former President George W. Bush's political fortunes in Iraq also risks making Obama look desperate or lacking new ideas for the war he said was more important than Iraq.

Syria: The New Romania, Or The New China?

My hero @JaredCohen has been on a tear the last couple days about the violent repression of dissent that's going on in Syria. Here's what I mean:

The dictator #bashar is learning that in an era of technology, if u fire on crowds, it is documented and disseminated #basharcrimes

Keep documenting the #BasharCrimes so he doesn't get away with any more murder in #Syria

Wow, death toll in #Syria today has reached 68 PEOPLE #BasharCrimes

Troops are firing on civilians, and the scene is quite horrible. But I fear that he and other believers in the political uses of new media are going to be disappointed if they think that drawing attention to atrocities via Twitter and Facebook will make a difference.

Call me a cynic, and I will be delighted if events prove me wrong, but I don't see how tweeting about Bashar's crimes will do anything to hold him accountable. We have been in "an era of technology" for quite some time now - it even predates the internet! - but dictators have gotten away with murder all along.

Back in 1989, when @Jared was eight years old, there was a notorious incident of a totalitarian regime violently suppressing peaceful dissent. It was quite well documented in real time by the world's news media:



I don't know what a thousand tweets could have added to the impact of that single 'old media' report. Everybody saw the Tiananmen Square massacre happen, everybody was shocked, but nothing happened to the Chinese leadership as a result.

International Court of Justice? Not interested. An embargo on international trade and economic development assistance? You must be kidding. Diplomatic consequences? Mere hand wringing, and not even much of that. If Chinese relations with the rest of the world suffered in any way, I can't see how. Certainly the U.S. is very friendly with China today.

Two months later, when the State Department assessed the aftermath of the China crisis, it was clear that there would be no lasting consequences either internally or externally.

The current 'Arab Spring' is analogous to the wave of uprisings that passed through Communist states in 1989, and this naturally excites the imagination of well-wishers. But the uprisings of 1989 ended when they hit the wall of a regime confident enough to use whatever force was necessary to maintain its authority and let world opinion make of that what it will.

Maybe Bashar Assad and his lovely wife Asma will turn out to the next Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu. That would be okay by me, but I don't think tweeting will make that happen.

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