"Despite
the best efforts of Obama's adversaries, the disparities between interventions
in Iraq and Libya - and their repercussions - are quite deep. The prosecution
of the Iraq War made one fear for the future of the U.N. multilateral system.
Nobody gave a damn - until very recently - about the concept of a
responsibility to protect."
Former Spain President José María Aznar: One of President Bush's staunchest allies, he now believes that President Obama is following the Bush Doctrine.
The
neocons applaud him, the radical left criticizes him - and for strikingly
similar reasons. This is a war to topple a tyrant, in which the leading power
is using force against a sovereign state - and without paying too much
attention to U.N. Security Council support. Not much different than what
happened with Saddam Hussein. The neocons feel retrospectively legitimized in
their war, and the anti-American sentiments of the radical left have been reinforced.
They all believe that Bush would wholeheartedly endorse the speech Obama gave to
his fellow citizens to explain the military intervention in Libya.
So claims the most unmistakable
neocon voice in Spain, José María Aznar,
in a television interview with Pedro José Ramírez:
"I think Obama is becoming the most important adherent of the Bush Doctrine. Yesterday
he said that a massacre had been prevented with the intervention in Libya. This
is called preventative intervention." Aznar is confusing preventive action
and preventive war, which in English are clearly delineated with the words
pre-emption and prevention. The first is an action that anticipates and avoids
an immediate threat and is a legitimate form of defense. The second is a class
of war intended to disarm an enemy that could potentially become a threat: this
is a war of aggression - unilateral and without legitimacy or justification.
The Iraq War was of this
second class, although at one point the coalition
of the Azores tried to convert the potential threat of imagined weapons of
mass destruction into an immediate threat: A document from Tony Blair's
government briefly suggested the danger of some type of missile reaching one of
the allies within 45 minutes. In the case of Libya, President Obama has pointed
to the threat posed by Qaddafi, which is much more tangible and already partially
verified by residents of Bengazi, to whom Qaddafi had promised to pursue from
house to house like rats.
[Editor's Note: The coalition
of the Azores refers to a meeting in Portugal, where President Bush
definitively informed European leaders that there would be war in Iraq.]
Despite the best efforts of
Obama's adversaries, the disparities between interventions in Iraq and Libya - and
their repercussions - are quite deep. The prosecution of the Iraq War made one
fear for the future of the U.N. multilateral system. Nobody gave a damn - until
very recently - about the concept of a responsibility to protect. That arose
from the so-called humanitarian interventions of the 1980s and has also been
blessed by the United Nations. The intervention in Libya, however, signifies a revival
of multilateralism. The U.N. Security Council has been reinvigorated, thanks to
Resolutions 1970
and 1973
on Libya, which are both based on Chapter
VII of the U.N. Charter, which provides for the possibility of the use of
force. The International
Criminal Court also derives an oxygen boost with these resolutions, since
it will be responsible for prosecuting any potential crimes against humanity that
arise. We return, finally, to the right of intervention - which, since the
paradigm shift of September 11, has given rise to this responsibility to
protect populations under threat.
However, Aznar is on firmer
ground with his second observation regarding the action in Libya, when he
observes that, "the intervention is expanding beyond the contents of any specific
resolution." Clearly, the neocons are again trying to retrospectively
justify the expansive interpretation of U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1441, which called on Saddam Hussein to
unilaterally disarm and to otherwise employ "all necessary means" to
achieve that objective. With that resolution, the Azores coalition justified
the invasion in the absence of an explicit authorization by the U.N.'s executive
body; just as they later tried to legitimize their actions after the fact with Resolution
1483, which recognized the U.S. and British occupation of Iraq.
Posted by WORLDMEETS.US
Aznar isn't the only one issuing
such criticism. Many voices, Putin among others, denounce a lax interpretation
of Resolution 1973, which has already seen air attacks across Libya against
ground troops, which has nothing to do with a "no fly zone" nor the
protection of Libya's people.
Other voices are alarmed at
handing weapons to the rebels, which was hinted at by Obama and discussed at the meeting
of allies London. The same could be said of actions designed to capture or
liquidate Qaddafi as part of a toppling of the regime, which isn't explicitly
spelled out in the resolution. Bearing the Iraq War in mind, all of these
interpretations make a case for the most rigorous limits on any resolution, or
alternatively, a new one from the Security Council. It would then be difficult
for Russia and China to benevolently abstain. Whether they like it or not, they
are also part of the pincer.