In the PBS Newshour segment to which I linked last week, Richard Haas said:
Why are we so confident that we know enough about the tribal structure of Libya, about the various clans that are competing for power, that if we intervene, that the guys we want are going to win, that we’re not, for example, going to create security vacuums that might be exploited by an al-Qaida in which various types of radical Islamists may not come to power?
It’s a fair question. Political scientist Omar Ashour addressed the issue last month and noted that while tribal rivalries in Libya run historically deep, the rebels may be well-organized enough to assuage fears of inter-tribal war. Ryan Charkow of CBC News went so far as to call it the “tribal warfare bogeyman,” noting that these stories of potential tribal warfare come from Gaddafi himself and his family. As Gaddafi’s son, Saadi, put it:
All the tribes are armed, of course… There are hundreds of thousands, and maybe millions, who all support the leader, and all of them are armed tribes. If something happens to the leader or steps down, who will control these tribes then?… Each one will act on its own, and we will face a civil war like in Somalia or Afghanistan.
So is this all just a lot of hot air that that the Gaddafis are using to justify their authority, just as Mubarack warned that “there will be chaos” if he resigned as Egypt’s president? The Libyan opposition does seem well-organized. Visit their web-page. And check out the rebel leaders’ bios on the BBC page.
But Libya is much different than Egypt. It is not a peaceful protest movement but rather a civil war. And while we should be wary of any statement from Gaddafi about why it’s important for him to hold onto power, we should also, if pondering military intervention, be careful to consider the endgame.
