"Cleaning up and rebuilding will be up to the
rebels - who are now ex-rebels - alone. … Whether their victory will set like
concrete, or whether the opposition, which has now lost a common goal, will
collapse, remains to be seen. The moment of truth is approaching."
The last Arab revolutionary of Nasser's political generation
is being shunted aside by revolution. However, it's a special kind of
revolution. It began as a local uprising in the eastern part of the country, which
felt badly treated by the regime, backed up by NATO bombing from the air and carried
westward by the rebel army. And as the conflict progressed, it was
characterized by growing doubts about whether the vast majority of people in such
places really wanted a revolution.
The Qaddafi-front held for a surprisingly long time -
six months. Nourished by Libya's oil wealth, the system for which the loyalist
army has fought for has kept its clients quite happy. They had a lot to lose.
Some even claim to believe Qaddafi's assertion that Libya was defending itself
against attack by imperialists, al-Qaeda, or both, which such logic certainly
allows.
At least NATO adhered to the conditions set by the U.N.
Security Council, which disallowed an "army of conquest," although
commands from NATO member states were undoubtedly in abundance on the ground in
Libya. It will be very important for the West to immediately withdraw
militarily from this conflict as soon as it has been settled politically. Cleaning
up and rebuilding will be up to the rebels - who are now ex-rebels - alone. Of
course, this shouldn’t occur without any kind of supervision from the outside.
The issue of human rights violations must also be put on the table before the
victors. Trust alone is not appropriate.
Now it is time to begin the post-Qaddafi era with a
transitional period that should lead to as democratic a system as possible.
Analysts consider Libya to be at a severe disadvantage in comparison with the
other North African states that have experienced coups: Egypt and Tunisia. In
both of these countries, there were structures and institutions which, while
providing only sham-political participation, at least were there to be
reinvigorated.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
In any case, one could imagine that
happening. But it won't be easy, because the old structures often prove
quite durable. So perhaps this is a chance for Libya to start from scratch
- to begin anew. For alas, in the muddled political world of Qaddafi's Green Book, there is
nothing to build on.
At the start, the rebels, like the Syrian opposition today,
had no good answer to the question: "Who are you all, anyway?" When an
answer to the question became necessary and NATO needed a "real partner,"
they quickly created a geographically based and professional looking
Transitional Council, as well as an Executive Committee. In time these
institutions lost some of their power of persuasion when splits within the Council
led to bloodshed and murder. Whether their victory will set like concrete, or
whether the opposition, which has now lost a common goal, will collapse, remains
to be seen. The moment of truth is approaching.
In its first few moments, the Council also issued
a very professional sounding plan for transition: elections for an interim
parliament which would draft a new constitution, which would be adopted and
legitimized by referendum, followed by the first constitutional elections, etc.
This textbook-script is a reasonable one, and it could work - but it isn't
inevitable: In Iraq it led to civil war because the country was not mature enough
for such a complicated process.
