Western countries assert that they have learned some lessons from the Iraq War, but it is not known for certain which of these lessons apply in Libya today, in light of the clear contraction between the declared goals for the military campaign against Gaddafi's forces and what is being revealed by slips of the tongue and some “internal” statements by officials in NATO countries about the possibilities of air and missile strikes developing into a land intervention. The League of Arab States had, in what represents a precedent, committed a fatal mistake by providing political cover to Western intervention in an Arab country that is not a rare case in terms of its people's demands being ignored and its protesters being killed, opening the door for any international power to pretext any internal conflict, in any country, in order to interfere in its affairs politically and militarily. We must ask Doha what its position would be if for example similar circumstances emerge in Syria or in Yemen in the future, and the Western alliance decides that putting a stop to this requires repeating the model that has been used to deal with Libya. And if the Security Council resolution to impose a no-fly zone on Libya and to bomb its air defenses and then the supply lines of Gaddafi's forces was imposed by the necessity of protecting the revolutionaries, who had become besieged in Benghazi after they had spread to the suburbs of Tripoli, the fact that NATO countries acknowledge that this will not stop the attacks of loyalist forces raises many questions. Did this not happen before in Iraq, when a no-fly zone was imposed over its North and its South, Saddam's air defenses were bombed, his planes were destroyed and he became economically and politically besieged, yet resiliently remained in place for 12 years until the United States decided to invade his country and overthrow him? Yet even in Iraq, with its ruler worrying the entire world, the Americans were forced to fabricate pretexts like the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in order to justify their invasion. What then could they fabricate this time in order to invade Libya? And will the slogan of protecting the revolutionaries or civilians be sufficient? And if the West, with its military and political leaderships, is declaring that the battle against Gaddafi might take a long time and that bombing from a distance or from the air is insufficient, then why did it fool the world by including in Resolution 1973 a sentence asserting that it excludes foreign invasion of any kind on any part of Libya's territory, while the British Chief of the Defence Staff states that there is the possibility of a “limited” land intervention? Can French President Sarkozy's intentions be trusted, when he is dealing with the Libyan issue as a means to avoid humiliation in the coming elections, after every opinion polls has shown the tremendous regression of his popularity and the advance of both his left-wing and extreme right-wing competitors? Can British Prime Minster Cameron be trusted, when he faces an economic crisis and considers that he would obtain priority in terms of oil in case a new regime is established in Libya, one with which he would have good relations after having harbored the opposition to Gaddafi for many years? And can US President Barack Obama be trusted, when the little over two years of his presidency have shown that he was willing to retract all past promises in exchange for immediate gains that would boost his chances for a second term? Yesterday, France's Interior Minister Guéant made a slip of the tongue when he spoke of the “crusade” being waged by Sarkozy to mobilize the Security Council, the Arab League and the African Union. We hope that such a blunder will remains at the mere verbal level.
