Once again, numerous Arab official and partisan reactions are emerging in regard to the international resolution over Libya, oscillating between the proclamation of support toward the popular demands and consequently the opposition of the existing regime, and the rejection of international interference to implement these goals. This duplicity was especially conveyed by the positions of the Arab League and its secretary general, although other Arab countries, parties and committees, voiced similar stands. That same controversy was raised following the invasion of Iraq, as a lot of ink was spilled over the discussion of the ways to get rid of a dictator and a tyrant and the legitimacy of his toppling by foreign powers. It is worth mentioning at this level that the former Iraqi regime did not fall until a wide-scale ground intervention was staged and until its forces were militarily defeated, knowing that North and South Iraq were under an air embargo ever since the Iraqi troops were ousted from Kuwait. In other words, the situation back then is similar to the current situation in Libya. The controversy resurfaced during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, and the discussions tackled the meaning of the Western - and especially the American - positions and the possibility of achieving the goal of toppling the rule in the two countries, a goal which was agreed on by both the local and external powers. We are thus facing Arab experiences in which local powers were able to topple the rule, far away from any foreign political intervention, at a time when this political and military intervention was imposed in other cases. True, oil is a common factor between Iraq and Libya, while the massive Western investments and economic interests were taken into consideration by the external powers. But what is more important at the level of the attempt to induce the intervention is the internal political vacuum, after the ruling regimes in both countries eliminated all other credible domestic alternatives, and rendered the latter vacuum an instigator of foreign intervention. In Iraq under the previous rule and in Libya under Colonel Gaddafi, a methodical extermination process was launched against any political power or figure that might have constituted an alternative, while the people, the state and its institutions were restricted to the regime and its oppressive security apparatuses. As for the rule, it was restricted to the family and its entourage. Indeed, power in both countries was stripped of all the elements which would have allowed any internal resistance against it, by renewing the campaigns of oppression, showing contempt toward the institutions, tightening the grip over the country's wealth and annulling any popular expressions related to livelihood and economic issues. Through these practices, the rule eliminated the local structure that could have ensured a peaceful power transition, and undermined the pretext used by the Western powers to justify their military intervention, i.e. the protection of the civilians from the oppression of the authority. However, in the Tunisian and Egyptian experiences, and despite the winding roads adopted by the process to topple the authority in them, the vacuum was filled with local powers which somewhat maintained their presence and strength. In both cases, the army was the backbone of this structure. However, local political and popular forces, and especially the Islamic ones, quickly sought an agreement with the army, in order to guarantee a peaceful and smooth transitory phase. This rendered any foreign political interference irrelevant for both the local and foreign powers. In that sense, the foreign intervention, and especially the military one, is linked to the weakness or even absence of a domestic alternative, a vacuum that is originally due to the behavior of the local authority, which is inviting foreign intervention in accordance with the size of the interests it will be protecting. Consequently, the predicament is not related to foreign intervention to topple a tyrannical rule – despite what this intervention is inducing at the level of the nature of the new regime (with Iraq as an example). It is rather related to the weakness of the local structure which will replace a rule that has reached its end.
