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With Gaddafi in hiding or on the run, it seems as though the rebels’ takeover of Libya is imminent. After 6 months of civil war, most of the country has come to support the overthrow of the longest reigning Arab leader. With Tripoli virtually under rebel subjugation, Gaddafi has fewer places to turn than Saddam Hussein had in Iraq in 2003. Seeing as the rebels have no intention of letting him go free, and Gaddafi himself recently announced he will fight “until victory or martyrdom,”1 I don’t see him surviving even six months, the length of time for which Hussein managed to hide. Meanwhile, the National Transitional Council (NTC) is already beginning to migrate out of long-held Benghazi into the freshly conquered Libyan capital, Tripoli, where embassies are granting recognition to the new interim government.
Speculation abounds, but here is my two cents. To put it simply, I am optimistic. I see the new government moving toward international recognition, democracy, and equality, as its leaders have expressed. Economically, Libya has lost a lot of ground because of Gaddafi’s expenditures—but with the oil industry, there is potential for a resurgence of wealth and stability. I expect the UN will uphold Libya’s reconstructive efforts, and the country will return to relatively good standing with the United States. Concerning Israel, the NTC seems to be largely neutral at this point, though it does support a two-state Israeli-Palestinian agreement. I suppose Israel will have to proffer recognition to the new Libya first, before the NTC decides how to approach the country.
-Dan Morton
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The Libyan crisis has been preeminent for a long time and has almost exasperated the general public to the point where a category 1 hurricane draws more attention in the media. I was originally optimistic towards the UN effort to support Libya’s rebel led transitional National Council, a group of individuals who had the courage to stand up to a fanatic dictator. However, a more skeptic outlook seemed predestined when the mere two sided confrontations metamorphosed into multiple localized attacks across a 1000-mile coastline. The initial goal of the NATO intervention was to protect civilians from the Quadaffi repression but ever since the international support emanated residents seemed more at risk. As a result, military airstrikes developed and increased both danger towards Libyans and international criticism. At one point, long-term civil war seemed unavoidable and the European led coalition seemed irresponsible and unprepared in regard to the events. However, the rapid advancement of troops into Tripoli opened new outlooks for the country and its inhabitants. The rebels have trampled the last stronghold of the colonel even though localized loyalists remain perched on rooftops with snipers. Once again, this intervention held numerous elements that could have led many to abandon the Libyan cause. Nevertheless, the people never gave up hope and clung on to the Declaration of Human Rights, which upholds the individual when confronted by an oppressive state.
In this sense, the Libyan crisis reminds us that the spring revolutions are not about narrow-minded desires for natural resources or other commodities but should rather be focused on the development of the Middle East, which would ultimately benefit everyone.
I have hope that Libya will come out strengthened from this four month long conflict through the restoration of its powerful industries, such as oil refineries, and the utilization of promising opportunities, such as UN sustainable development. The retaliation of loyalist supporters or the division of the rebel force into ethnic fractions remain possible; however, in my opinion the prospect of at least temporary peace for a country ravaged by authoritarianism seems to outweigh the latter pessimistic perspective.
-Roger Mitchell
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I won’t consider the government in Libya a success unless it is a modern democracy limited by a constitution. Anything short of that would leave too much room to revert back into an autocracy. Can Libya do it? I am hopeful but skeptical. To be perfectly honest, Libya finds itself in a stronger place than other new democracies (i.e. Iraq). The bureaucracy in place under Gaddafi has remained intact (minus some obvious high-level, corrupt removals). Their presence can aid the building of a new nation and should help the nation secure order quickly (Compare this to Iraq after every governing official was removed, all the way down to the village level). Most importantly, the rebels won the war on their own backs. Sure NATO air support was pivotal to their success and it could be easily argued that the rebels wouldn’t have had a chance without it, but the same could be said about France’s intervention in the American revolutionary war. The fact remains that it was the Libyans and Americans that actually fought their respective wars. In other words they earned their victories. That creates an important national identity that the Libyans can build on.
However, Libya is missing something that was essential to the creation of America. There is no unified ideology. In America the colonists fought for the ideas of “no taxation without representation”, religious liberty, and fundamental “inalienable” rights. Just look at the Declaration of Independence. I don’t see that in Libya. There is no document defining what they want and what they believe in. There has been no serious talk on their part about democracy or freedoms. This rebellion was fueled solely on opposition to Gaddafi. That’s what gave them unity. Now that Gaddafi is out of the picture, what remains to give them unity? The national identity that has been created by winning the rebellion will quickly disappear without an ideology to hold onto.
So to sum up, Libya has the national structure and unity to maintain order and transition smoothly to a new regime. I do not fear a new civil war. However national identity born out of conflict is brittle and short lasting if a strong ideology or a strong leader does not accompany it. Libya right now has neither. And as the general trend of history shows, if a nation doesn’t have a strong ideology to hold to, a strong leader will come to direct the nation. If Libya allows that to happen they will be under the thumb of a new Gaddafi.
-Tyler Holmes
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