Will U.S. "Re-Involve" Itself in Libya?

By Matt Southworth on 04/25/2011 @ 06:00 PM

Tags: Libya, Middle East, War Is Not the Answer

A resolution to the conflict in Libya does not seem imminent. The humanitarian crisis is worsening; the Obama administration has authorized the use of armed drones; and the U.S. is being pushed toward greater involvement by NATO allies. Are U.S. boots on the ground in Libya in the future? The Administration has been adamant that no U.S. troops will be deployed to Libya, but the future is a fickle thing to predict. FCNL has been clear: there’s no military solution to the conflict in Libya.

The humanitarian crisis has, in fact, worsened as a result of military intervention, as I predicted in early March. The rebels forces are reporting that 10,000 people are dead and 55,000 have been wounded in just the last two months. The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) is reporting that thousands of people are fleeing toward Tunisia and Egypt. The humanitarian crisis is likely to get much worse in the coming months; well over 300,000 people have already fled.

The Obama administration’s escalation of U.S. involvement by the authorization to use armed drones in Libya should be seen as a precursor of what is to come. Military intervention, after all, is a process. First and foremost, setting the moral and legal issues aside, drones are not reliable. They crash (and the military is sent in to retrieve them); drone operators in Pakistan routinely kill innocent people; and yet the aerospace industry is spending millions to ensure this technology stays around. Worst of all, the use of drones in Libya, like the use of drones in Pakistan, is Obama’s way of being in a country without being in a country in the traditional sense. “Boots on the ground”—I guess the CIA issues tasseled loafers these days—is not the only measure of the U.S. military involvement in Libya.

Speaking of U.S. involvement, NATO wants more. In a meeting today with the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, British Defense Secretary Liam Fox sought to pressure the U.S. into more involvement. NATO, which has flown 3,725 sorties and 1,550 strike sorties since March 31, has struggled to drive Muammar Qaddafi from power. William Hague, British Foreign Secretary, recently warned that Britain must prepare for the "long haul" in Libya. Just how long—and with what strategic objective and U.S. involvement—remains to be seen.

NATO has been actively trying to kill Qaddafi for weeks now, most recently by striking suspected hideouts in Tripoli. All along, it seems NATO and the U.S. have assumed that once Qaddafi leaves or is killed, the political aftermath will stack in the West’s favor. This is utterly erroneous, of course, because there is nothing preventing Libyan rebels from fighting each other. While it is nearly impossible to accurately predict how things will shake out after Qaddafi is gone (assuming that actually happens), it is reasonable to assume there will be significant political strife as Libya’s political and ethnic groups vie for power in a protracted civil war.

So what comes next? Will the Obama administration authorize the use of covert operations and Special Forces groups in Libya? Worse yet, using the precedent set by President Obama, will a future U.S. president send U.S. Marines into Libya in a Somalia style containment effort?This is no ordinary hypothetical; U.S. history is full of this very scenario. The conflict in Libya will end through robust diplomacy, not through costly military actions. Moreover, the U.S. must uphold and build structures of peace, rather than instruments of war; this necessity must come to the forefront of the debate about Libya.