Libya: Rebels in retreat
The only country where the Arab revolution became a military struggle may be one of the places where the regime stays put
The renewed clashes this weekend between Gaddafi's army and the opposition forces near Ajdabiya in eastern Libya confirm something that western powers should have realised a long time ago: the rebel army is not a fighting force. It expelled Gaddafi's officials from Benghazi and had to fight to do so, but when it comes to actual combat between two armies, all the rebels have ever done is to retreat. Territorial advances have been secured only by western air strikes and only after Gaddafi's forces turned tail. The rebels have yet to capture and hold ground on their own account. If there is a war going on, it is between Nato air power and Gaddafi's ground forces.
Nor should we kid ourselves that on-the-job training by the SAS will make a difference. Providing heavy weapons to a force with little command and control is an even worse idea. Gaddafi's forces have adapted swiftly to the shock of being blown out of the sand in the first wave of air strikes. They have hidden their tanks and turned themselves into a fast-moving force, using pickups that, from the air, are indistinguishable from those they are fighting. The rebels in the meantime have continued to charge up and down a 150km stretch of coastal road, with weapons many of them have little idea how to use. If they tried this with tanks and heavy artillery, they would soon lose them, and the coalition would only be arming the wrong side.
Nato, too, may soon reach the limits of what it can do with air power, after the second time in less than a week that its war planes struck friendly targets. Nato refused to apologise for the latest attack on a rebel convoy of tanks and troops. The British deputy commander of the operation, Rear Admiral Russell Harding, said on Friday that they had not been told that the rebels planned to deploy tanks. Air strikes may have degraded Gaddafi's forces to the point that they no longer threaten Benghazi, but that is a long way from him surrendering control of Tripoli. Libya is the only country where the Arab revolution became a military struggle, and for this very reason it may be one of the places where the regime stays put.
If all this points to a stalemate, and worse, one that partitions the country, the prospect of negotiating a ceasefire may start to look more attractive to both sides. Two elements of the peace plan put forward by the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, could appeal to the rebels: a ceasefire in the cities surrounded by Gaddafi's forces and a humanitarian corridor. Getting their cities back would allow the rebels to return to the business of organising an uprising, which is exactly why Gaddafi might oppose such a move. The third element – negotiations leading to free elections – is more troubling to the rebel leadership in Benghazi because they could be a long, drawn-out process. Determining how the Gaddafi clan will react to this, with its splits and the uncertainties over son Saif's role, is anyone's bet. If Saif is indeed working towards an exit strategy that is not insulting to his father – an interim government and a transition period that leaves him in place but without power – then the Turkish proposal is well aimed. Even if this is yet far from his father's intentions, he will be canny enough not to reject Turkish mediation out of hand. The problem is that we know so little about these court intrigues that it is impossible to make a judgment about how an end game might look. All we know is that the military option is looking less appealing and the regime, despite the defections, is not crumbling.
The air war may have secured parts of Libya, but Gaddafi has shown for the second time in his life that he is still standing on home turf. This could change, but how many in Nato are that confident that it will? All this points to an outcome with Gaddafi and his sons in place. It is messy. It lacks a redemptive conclusion. But it is the way this conflict is going.
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