Libya: A Premature Victory Celebration
The war in Libya is over. More precisely, governments and media have
decided that the war is over, despite the fact that fighting continues.
The unfulfilled expectation of this war has consistently been that
Moammar Gadhafi would capitulate when faced with the forces arrayed
against him, and that his own forces would abandon him as soon as they
saw that the war was lost. What was being celebrated last week, with
presidents, prime ministers and the media proclaiming the defeat of
Gadhafi, will likely be true in due course. The fact that it is not yet
true does not detract from the self-congratulations.
For example, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini reported that only
5 percent of Libya is still under Gadhafi’s control. That seems like a
trivial amount, save for this news from Italian newspaper La Stampa,
which reported that “Tripoli is being cleaned up” neighborhood by
neighborhood, street by street and home by home. Meanwhile, bombs from
above are pounding Sirte, where, according to the French, Gadhafi has
managed to arrive, although it is not known how. The strategically
important town of Bali Walid — another possible hiding place and one of
only two remaining exit routes to another Gadhafi stronghold in Sabha —
is being encircled. Read more »
Dispatch: Pakistani Instability and the Violence in Karachi
Analyst Kamran Bokhari explains how the continuing violence in Karachi
aggravates matters for a weakened Pakistan and its implications for
NATO’s efforts to withdraw from Afghanistan. Watch the Video »
