U.S. Military Intervention In Libya? Just Say NoAs the conflict in Libya continues to rage, the calls for U.S. military intervention are picking up steam. Today, for example, Senator John McCain expanded on comments he made while in Egypt over the weekend and
called for a no-fly zone over Libya:
In some of his harshest comments so far, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized the Obama administration Tuesday for its handling of tumultuous situations in Libya, Egypt and the Middle East.
McCain also shot down the argument that the U.S. could not afford to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.
Of course we have to have a no-fly zone, McCain said at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council in Washington on Tuesday. We are spending over $500 billion dollars, not counting Iraq and Afghanistan, on our nations defense. Dont tell me we cant do a no-fly zone over Tripoli.
I love the military, I love it, its been my life, but they always seem to find reasons why you cant do something rather than why you can, he added.
McCains comments come on the same morning that the Washington Post reports that some rebel forces in Libya are
considering whether to ask for outside military intervention:
Rebel leaders in eastern Libya called Tuesday for international military intervention to help topple Moammar Gaddafi, as the realization dawned that people power alone may not be enough to dislodge their nations autocratic leader from his last remaining strongholds.
The rebels said they do not want ground forces, but they are increasingly coming around to the view that help in the form of a no-fly zone, as well as airstrikes and supplies of weaponry, will be necessary to ensure Gaddafis fall.
U.S. military officials said the rebels have not yet asked them for help, and on Tuesday they
played down the likelihood of the United States setting up a no-fly zone.
But in the eastern city of Benghazi, the center of the resistance, some members of the committee formed to run the city said they expected to issue a formal request for military assistance to the international community Wednesday.
And in Misurata, a town about 120 miles east of Tripoli that is besieged by Gaddafis militias, a spokesman for the newly formed committees set up to run that town said residents also want foreign help against Gaddafi.
A no-fly zone would limit his movements, his ability to move mercenaries from south to north and to recruit mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa, said a member of the media committee, Saadoun, who requested that he be identified only by a nom de guerre because Misurata remains hotly contested.
Providing military equipment and arms to our free army in the east will help the free army march to Tripoli, said Saadoun in a telephone interview. And we want surgical military strikes to target his militia and make this end swiftly and quickly and not to shed any more innocent Libyan blood.
The temptation to intervene is understandable from a humanitarian point of view, especially as we see yet more reports today of
the Libyan Air Force being used to strike towns controlled by the rebels, The idea of using American assets, probably assisted by NATO, to prevent the Libyans from using air power to attack civilians seems an easy call, but it becomes a little more complicated once you recognize that doing so means that wed be taking sides in a civil war whose end is far from certain. Moreover, it ought to be recognized that a no-fly zone would be, without question, an act of war and
would carry with it risks of any other military operation:
One Western diplomat, leaving a Security Council meeting on Wednesday, said that a no-fly zone over Libya would be extremely difficult to implement you need airports, hundreds of planes. It is an act of war, and you have to bear the consequences.
Such a move could risk the ire of Libyas Muslim and Arab neighbors and inflame already prickly relations with Security Council members Russia and China, experts say. Worse, such a provocative move could be perceived by Gadhafis regime as a declaration of war.
The worst-case scenario may not be horrible, but we have seen that the costs of perceived military unilateralism in the Arab world are high, said Michael OHanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes in national security and defense issues.
While the U.S. response has been diplomatic so far, a no-fly zone could cause things to escalate in a hurry: After the first Gulf War, the United States, with U.N. support, established a no-fly zone over southern Iraq in 1992 after reports that Saddam Hussein had used violence against Iraqis, specifically Kurds and Shiites. In the following years, Husseins air forces openly challenged the zone, resulting in skirmishes and an air of brinkmanship that didnt end, fully, until 2003s Operation Iraqi Freedom.
And without the ground support that coalition forces had in the Gulf War, foreign policy experts are split on how effective a no-fly zone would be.
But one thing they all agree on: A no-fly zone could touch off a wider conflagration.
There would be happiness by some that the U.S. and Europe are standing by them, said Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation. But a lot more will be skeptical. There is an institutional skepticism by anything from the West. Some will resent the perception of force robbing the Libyans of their own moment, he said.