US Sources Question French Intervention Strategy In Mali

Sometimes the most interesting nugget in a story comes buried all the way at the end; that is the case here with this story on Reuters about France's sudden involvement in the slow-burning civil war in Mali. Near the end of the Reuters piece is this comment from the infamous “anonymous source”, identified by Reuters as a US military official, who asks: “I don't know what the French endgame is for this. What is their goal? It reminds me of our initial move into Afghanistan.”

Before we unpack that statement, a little background on the current situation in Mali. Until last year, Mali had been considered one of the more successful states in West Africa, though a state that still dealt with a long-simmering issue of civil unrest in the northern part of the country where separatists hoped to carve out their own homeland. In one of the great examples of the law of unintended consequences, this bid received a massive shot in the arm from the US/French/British-led campaign to support the rebels in Libya in their bid to oust Moammar Gadhafi. His overthrow meant the return of thousands of Tuareg mercenaries, formerly employed by Gadhafi, to their homelands in northern Mali, where they teamed up with al-Qadea-leaning militias and turned a minor bit of civil unrest into a full-blown civil war.

The Malian army, not happy with the way the war was being run, staged a coup, overthrowing Mali's president (The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald notes this is a double-irony for the West since the coup was led by a US-trained army captain). With no functioning military, the Tuareg/al-Qaeda alliance took control over half of the country before having their own setback when the Islamist militias turned on their Tuareg allies. 2012 ended with the situation in Mali an utter mess and Mali's neighbors pleading for assistance to prevent Mali from turning into a failed state haven for al-Qaeda-linked groups.

The US has been promoting a strategy built on the “Somali model”, at least the most recent version of foreign intervention in Somalia, which has been the most successful in the past 20 years. In practice, this means providing funding and logistical support to troops from neighboring African nations who will do the actual fighting. In Somalia this, has been a mix of primarily Ugandan, Kenyan, Ethiopian troops who have managed to largely defeat Somalia's homegrown Islamist militia, al-Shabaab, and restore some semblance of a functioning government to Somalia.

That was the plan, at least for Mali as well, until last week when the French began spearheading their own much more direct intervention, which started with airstrikes against Islamist positions, most notably surrounding the city of Gao. There are now also reports of French special forces troops on the ground in Mali. Why France decided to launch their Mali mission is a topic that is actively being discussed, though it could likely be because the force of 2,000-3,000 peacekeepers from a collection of West African nations would not have been ready to deploy for several months, perhaps not until September, and perhaps not even then.

And that brings us back to our unnamed US military source.  He/she goes on to add: “Air strikes are fine. But pretty soon you run out of easy targets. Then what do you do? What do you do when they [the  militias] head up into the mountains?”  Sadly, since he/she is anonymous, it is impossible to know if they asked these same important questions when the US went stumbling into Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps they are offering up these comments as a sort of advice, hard-won knowledge from the foibles of those two US interventions. But it is hard not to read these comments as being both hypocritical and condescending given the past decade of US foreign involvement, our continued questionable presence in Afghanistan and the calls by the DC warhawks, particularly those of the neoconservative stripe, for a US campaign against Iran, yet another military mission that is unlikely to achieve its tactical goal – elimination of Iran's nuclear program – while possessing a high likelihood of spurring a whole chain of unexpected and unintended consequences.

The “Somali model” idea pushed by the United States sounds good on paper, the problem is that while Somalia had several neighbors with large populations – Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia – to supply troops, the would-be ECOWAS force for Mali is being drawn from a collection of fairly small states like Ghana and Sierra Leone, not countries known for having large and robust armies. Nigeria is the one large neighbor that is pledging troops, but Nigeria is also dealing with their own separatist movement (MEND – the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) and their own Islamist uprising (Boko Harum), so it is hard to understand why the Nigerians would then suddenly have such better luck when operating in Mali when they have struggled so much against these two groups at home. The proposed Malian peacekeeping force is also made up of only 2,000-3,000 soldiers; by contrast, the Ugandans alone contributed up to 16,000 troops to the ANISOM mission in Somalia. 

Our unnamed source is asking some good and important questions, but they are questions that highlight the problem with the international community since 9/11: there is now a far greater motivation to intervene in troubled nations (especially when supposed “al-Qaeda” forces are involved) and to intervene right away!  But these proposed interventions are launched without clear military objectives in mind, and more importantly, without a plan for the “day after” the initial military campaign is launched, or in other words, without an exit strategy.  The United States has spent 12 years trying to find a way out of Afghanistan, you have to wonder if France will now find that it was very easy to get into Mali, but that it will be very hard to get out.

Pirates From Somalia, Weapons From Libya

So along with the coup in Mali, it looks like we can add another unintended consequence to the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya: better armed Somali pirates.

According to this report on the website of Foreign Policy, since the fall of his regime, weapons that formerly belonged to Gadhafi's military have been flowing out of Libya.  And some of those arms seem to have made their way to Somalia though a circuitous route moving first through arms merchants located in Sierra Leone and Liberia on Africa's west coast, before traveling east to Somalia.

And, sadly, we're not just talking about the ubiquitous AK-47 here; according to FP, based on research conducted by the African Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism, the weapons procured by the Somali pirates include anti-ship mines and Stinger hand-held anti-aircraft missiles.  Weapons of that magnitude could give the pirates more ability to fight back against the international navy patrols who have been trying to tamp down piracy in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean to the east of Somalia.

So far, attacks by Somali pirates are said to be down this year from last.  The question now is whether the pirates will start to feel bolder thanks to all these new weapons at their disposal.

How's That Coup Working Out For You?

That's a question that a group of army officers in the West African nation of Mali have to be asking themselves right about now.  Two weeks ago, a group of mid-level officers overthrew the democratically-elected government of President Amadou Toumani Toure over what they felt was President Toure's incompetent handling of the uprising by Tuareg tribesmen in the northern part of Mali, which began in January. 

But since a group of officers led by Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo siezed the presidential residence, Mali's army has been in disarray, and the Tuaregs have been taking full advantage, seizing a string of Malian cities, including the historic Timbuktu.  For their part, the Tuaregs say that they launched their uprising in response to continued oppression by the Malian government in Bamako, located in the southern part of the country.  The Tuaregs are fighting for an independent homeland that they would carve out of the northern section of Mali.  They have dubbed their militia the “National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad”; there are reports that the Tuareg numbers have been bolstered by fighters formerly employed by Moammar Gadhafi's regime- since the Libyan leaders is known to have favored Tuareg mercenaries for their loyalty and fearsome reputation across west Africa.  Of course, since Gadhafi's downfall, these men have been mercenaries without a job.

The Malian military was upset by the government's handling of the uprising and by the heavy casualties they were taking in fighting the Tuaregs.  But many international observers are saying that the actions of Capt. Sanogo and his fellow coup plotters were impulsive, and that they seized the presidential residence without any plan as to what to do next.  That their coup seems to be having the exact opposite of its intended effect – rather than improving its effectiveness, the military campaign against the Tuaregs has all but fallen apart – seems to back up this assessment.  To make matters worse, it has been discovered that Capt. Sanogo was actually one of a group of elite Malian soldiers who were selected to receive advanced anti-terroristtraining in the United States, which makes you wonder just what the US was teaching these “elite” soldiers since they seem to have totally screwed up their own anti-insurgency campaign with the coup they impulsively decided to stage against a president who was scheduled to leave office next month anyway.

What happens now is anybody's guess.  Mali's neighbors are taking moves to seal their borders, isolating Mali in response to the coup.  But, at the same time, it is clear that the Tuareg uprising has gotten past the Malian army's ability to handle, so without foreign assistance, it is likely to continue.  Also in question are the whereabouts of President Toure, who hasn't been seen since the coup.  Everyone seems to agree that he is safe, somewhere within the country, though reports then differ, suggesting that he is either trying to seek asylum with the French government, or that he is being protected by a cadre of loyal soldiers, which also suggests the possibility of a counter-coup.   

Gadhafi's Revenge

Reports out of Libya on Tuesday are that loyalists to ousted (and deceased) leader Moammar Gadhafi have retaken control of the city of Bani Walid, defeating the local militia after a clash between the two forces.  Libya's acting defense minister told Western reporters that the National Transitional Council (NTC) was still “assessing” the situation in Bani Walid, and suggested that the fighting might simply be a skirmish between rival militias.  But USA Today quoted Mubarak al-Fatamni, the head of Bani Walid's local council as saying that the city had indeed fallen to pro-Gadhafi fighters and that he had fled to the city of Misrata.  Other reports said that the Gadhafi-era green flag was seen flying over buildings across Bani Walid.

Bani Walid was one of the last cities in Libya to fall to the Libyan rebellion that ousted Gadhafi, the city was also reportedly the hideout for Gadhafi's son, and supposed heir apparent, Saif al-Islam until his capture.  At the moment, it is unclear what is the goal of the pro-Gadhafi forces now holding Bani Walid; it is hard to imagine that there are enough people loyal to the old regime to drive the NTC from power at this point, not to mention the fact that Gadhafi is still dead and the son picked to be his successor is being held prisoner by the NTC ahead of a war crimes trial likely to take place in Libya.  But it is estimated that there are thousands of well-armed and well-trained members of the former regime still in Libya.  The raid on Bani Walid also shows the weakness of the NTC, which despite the word “national” is far from being a unifying government in Libya.  During the uprising against Gadhafi, militias sprung up in many Libyan towns, these militias are still jockeying for power in the new Libya, occasionally even openly fighting with each other.  In addition, a protest in Benghazi, the launching point of the Libyan revolt, spun out of control last week, with protesters sacking an office belonging to the NTC.  The protest was over the NTC's lack of transparency and a belief that the NTC is putting foreign interests ahead of those of average Libyans.  Bani Walid's al-Fatamni said that he had been warning Tripoli about the possibility of a loyalist attack for two months and had requested reinforcements, but none came before the attack. 

The Grinch Who Stole The UN

I heard about this story while out with some friends last Friday.  It is nice to think of the United Nations as a serious place where diplomats and experts sincerely try to come up with mature solutions to the world's most dire problems.

And then there's Mark Kornblau, the spokesman for the United States' Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice.  In response to an ongoing feud between his boss and Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, Kornblau tweeted this picture of Churkin photoshopped into an image of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  Glad to see that the US is sending mature boys and girls to represent our interests at the United Nations...

Rice and Churkin have recently had an increasingly testy round of exchanges over Syria and Libya.  Basically, the United States is angry with Russia over that country's opposition to increased pressure on the Assad regime in Syria over their brutal crackdown of pro-democracy demonstrators.  Russia, which has long-standing political and economic ties to Syria, is reluctant to punish the country any further. But Churkin has framed Russia's position as one of opposition to another US-led attempt at regime change in the Middle East/North Africa region, citing the NATO-led, US-backed campaign that led to the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.  Rice responded to Churkin's latest position statement against further sanctions in Syria by saying of the Russian position “it is duplicitous, it's redundant, it's superfluous and it's a stunt.”  Churkin took a dig at Rice by saying those were the kind of big words one learns at Stanford, Rice's alma mater.

Of course a better tack for Churkin would have been to bring up Bahrain.  While Rice is making an impassioned case for intervention (politically at least) in Syria by stating: “Welcome to December. Is everybody sufficiently distracted from Syria now and the killing that is happening before our very eyes?,” just as the United States had made a similar case for action in Libya once that regime started killing its own citizens, the US position towards Bahrain was quite different.  When the small Persian Gulf state launched its own brutal crackdown against its own pro-democracy movement, which included the shooting of unarmed protesters and the arrest of doctors who tried to treat the wounded, the US was silent beyond a few bland calls for “restraint”.  The difference is that Bahrain is the home to the United States Navy's Fifth Fleet, the Bahrani royal family is closely allied with the Saudis and that the protesters were largely Shiite Muslims (like their large neighbor to the east, Iran).  Of course, if the United States is going to be the passionate supporter of human rights around the globe, then we should also call out our allies for their transgressions – a good point for Churkin to make.

Getting back to the Grinch thing.  Not only was it stupid, it was childish.  Given the beating the United States' image took at the UN during the term of Dubya Bush-era Ambassador John Bolton, who had all of the grace and diplomacy of a pit bull, there is a real need for the representatives of the United States now to appear mature and professional, Mark Kornblau has shown he is neither of these things.  Firing Kornblau would be a good step in the process of rebuilding the United States' stature as a glopbal leader at the UN.   

As Much As I Hate To Defend Herman Cain...

I really don't want this to come off as a defense of the Republican presidential candidate, especially for an incident in the realm of foreign affairs where I think he is especially clueless, but some of the criticism surrounding his recent performance before an editorial board meeting of the Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal is I think is unwarranted.

If you haven't seen it, or have only seen an excerpt of it, the full, five-minute video of the exchange is available here.  The problem starts when Cain is asked if he agreed with the Obama Administration's position in supporting the Libyan rebels in the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi. The beginning of the video is admittedly painful to watch, Cain stumbles badly as he tries to remember his pre-programmed critique of Obama. If Herman Cain was a Mac, you would have been able to see the little beach ball spinning above his head as his brain tried to access the file containing the appropriate Obama slam.  Cain then goes into a lengthy, and off-topic, explanation about how as a businessman he likes to get a myriad of opinions before making a decision.  The whole sad reply, I would say, is deserving of some critique.  But buried in his stumbling answer is a nugget of truth – namely that we (the United States/The “West”/NATO) really had very little inkling about who the Libyan rebels were, or what were their ultimate goals aside from getting rid of Gadhafi; it was on the strength of that desire alone that the US/NATO gave the rebels their whole-hearted support.  Cain said - poorly, but he did manage to get it out – that as Commander-in-Chief he would have wanted to gather a little more intelligence, and had a little better idea of the nature of the rebel movement, before getting into bed with them.

That, I think, is a perfectly reasonable position, and one that shows that Cain at least has some grasp on the Libyan situation.  And perhaps as someone who has some experience in broadcasting, I'm also a little sympathetic to a person who loses their train of thought on camera.  Make no doubt about it, I think Herman Cain may have the worst foreign policy platform among the Republican candidates – his recent Uzbeki-beki-beki-stan-stan comment showed that not only is he out of his depth on foreign policy, but he's also proud of his ignorance and condescending towards other nationalities.  So let's criticize the man for his truly awful positions, and not just for a brain freeze that went viral.

NATO's Humanitarian Hypocrisy

Reports coming out of Sirte, Libya point to an ongoing humanitarian disaster as a pitched battle for control of the coastal city drags on. Residents say that neighborhoods are bombed and shelled indiscriminately, doctors in the overwhelmed hospitals complain of shortages of everything from medicine to fuel for their generators, while tens of thousands of people remain hunkered down in their houses, fearful of retribution if they leave the city limits.

This sounds like exactly the type of situation NATO intervened in Libya to prevent as part of their “humanitarian” mission, except many of the bombs falling on Sirte are being dropped by NATO aircraft. Sirte is the hometown of Moammar Gadhafi, and is the largest remaining stronghold of support for the old regime. The Libyan rebels have launched several attacks trying to drive into the center of Sirte, but so far all have been turned back. So they appear to be falling back to the old Gadhafi-era tactic of just blasting the city to pieces. Rebel leadership claims that the civilian population of Sirte has fled and the only people left are militias loyal to Gadhafi; or alternatively that any civilians left in the city are being used by Gadhafi militias as “human shields”.

But reporters from Reuters offer a different view. They have talked with citizens in Sirte and report that while many still support Gadhafi, they are neither fighters nor human shields. Many, instead, are simply unwilling to abandon their homes or are more fearful of rebel retribution if they were to leave town than they are of falling bombs and mortars. There is some evidence supporting their fears; several weeks ago, the UK's Telegraph newspaper reported from Tawarga , a city of 10,000, now turned into a ghost town. Tawarga was a center of support for Gadhafi that fell to the rebels, who promptly emptied it. As one rebel commander said: “Tawarga no longer exists.”

A true humanitarian mission would prevent wanton revenge attacks like this, since in addition to being morally wrong, they also make the eventual process of reconciliation between the warring sides all the more difficult. But as NATO has managed to prove, the humanitarian mission talk was all a front anyway for a policy of ridding the West of a major irritant in Col. Gadhafi. NATO gave up any pretext of a humanitarian mission when they began to act as the de facto air force for the rebel movement, including staging precision bombing runs against Gadhafi's headquarters during the rebel's final assault on Tripoli. The generals back at NATO HQ in Brussels were probably disappointed when the rebels failed to find Gadhafi's body among the rubble.

Staging a humanitarian mission means protecting civilians, all the civilians, not just the ones who agree with your worldview. Through their actions, NATO and its member nations (the United States included) have shown that what's going on in Libya is not an exercise in humanitarian intervention, but rather a perversion of it.

Gadhafi and Bin Laden's Strange Link

Quick quiz: name the first country to issue an international arrest warrant for the now-deceased Osama bin Laden. The United States you say? No. Kenya perhaps for the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi? Or Saudi Arabia? Great Britain? Spain?

Nope. It was Libya.

A comment on The Guardian's liveblog of developments in the bin Laden story reminded me of this fact, reported here by Sky News. Way back in March 1998, the government of Moammar Gadhafi (yes, that Gadhafi) issued an arrest warrant for bin Laden in connection with the murder of a German man named Sinvan Becker and his wife, who were supposedly visiting Libya as tourists. Only Becker wasn't merely a tourist, he was one of German intelligence's top analysts on Islamic threats in the Arab world. He and his wife were murdered by four gunmen in the town of Sirte in 1994. The Libyans claimed the gunmen worked for a group called "al Muqatila”, al-Qaeda's branch office in Libya. In 1998 the Libyans passed information about the murder, and bin Laden's supposed involvement, off to Interpol, which then issued the international arrest warrant against bin Laden.

It is a strange world…

Arab League Doubles Down

While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice are said to have led the charge within the American government to intervene for humanitarian grounds in Libya, the act that seems to have spurred the global community to action was the Arab League's call for a no-fly zone. Within a few days of the Arab League's announcement, which amounted to their symbolically turning their backs on one of their more famous members, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, aircraft from the United States, Great Britain and France were patrolling the skies over Libya.

Now the Arab League is calling for another no-fly zone, this time over the Gaza Strip. That call is spurred by an increase in fighting between the Gazans and Israel over the past week, which has seen rocket attacks launched from Gaza met by Israeli airstrikes. So far the casualty totals are one wounded in Israel and 19 dead in Gaza. That statistic has the Arab League calling Israel's actions “brutal” and asking that the UN Security Council “consider the Israeli aggression in the Gaza Strip on an urgent basis to stop its siege and impose a no-fly rule on the Israeli military to protect civilians in the Gaza Strip,” according to the League's formal statement. Not surprisingly, the Israelis responded by telling the Arab League that instead of UN resolutions, they should focus on getting the folks in Gaza to stop launching missiles into Israel.

The Arab League's call for a no-fly zone over Gaza won't fly (forgive the pun) if for no other reason than a resolution authorizing it will be vetoed by the United States within the Security Council as are any resolutions that are perceived to interfere with Israel's security stance. But the fact that the Arab League is publicly calling for a no-fly zone in the first place is yet one more bit of tension in an already tense region. Meanwhile, both the Gazans and the Israelis say they are willing to abide by a cease-fire, so long as the other side stops shooting first. As to why there has been a flare up in attacks between Israel and Gaza after a period of relative calm (relative to the region at least), a couple of factors are likely at play: a recent attempt at rapprochement between the Hamas-led government in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank, as well as Palestine's potential unilateral declaration of statehood that could happen later this year, both factor that would drastically change the current Israel-Palestine equation.

Russian Leaders' Libya Fight

The conflict in Libya is also sparking another battle, this time between Russia's ruling tandem: President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Putin sparked the infighting between the two last Monday when he gave an interview condemning United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 authorizing the Libyan no-fly zone that Medvedev had given his tacit support (at least by not having Russia veto it in the Security Council). Putin questioned the whole concept of a bombing campaign designed to prevent a humanitarian disaster and spoke out against a coalition of nations interfering in the internal security situation of another country, before finally comparing the current intervention in Libya to the Medieval Crusades. This last statement set Medvedev off – he said that given the existing tension between the Arab and Western worlds, it was not helpful for Putin to compare the current situation to centuries of Christian vs. Muslim warfare. Russia's now former ambassador to Libya, Vladimir Chamov, then tossed gasoline onto the smoldering fire between the two by saying he not only supported Putin's “Crusades” comment upon his return to Moscow from Tripoli, but adding that failing to oppose the UNSC resolution to launch the no-fly zone was a “betrayal of Russian interests”, noting that Russian companies have billions of dollars worth of contracts with Libyan firms, mostly in the energy sector, that are now in jeopardy (see this post for more on Russian business in Libya).

All of this has observers wondering what is really going on between Russia's two leaders. The optimistic view is that this is yet another case of the two playing a political act of good-cop/bad-cop: with Medvedev supporting the UNSC resolution to stay on the good side of the international community while Putin makes vaguely anti-Western statements to appease the nationalists within the domestic audience who see actions like the Libyan intervention as nothing but an American plot to gain control over the world, at Russia's expense. Other political analysts though think the rift may be more than play-acting.

Alexei Fenenko, an international security expert at the Russian Academy of Science said in The Guardian that Medvedev's stance was “pragmatic” since it was clear that the United States wanted to intervene in Libya and would have done so with or without a UN resolution. If the United States wants a third war, let them have it,” Feneko said. “There was already fighting in Libya even without the intervention, so our companies will lose out, bombing or not,” he added. Meanwhile s Pavel Salin, an analyst with Moscow's Center for Political Assessments believes that the clash between Medvedev and Putin was real and is rooted in their differing worldviews. "Putin, given his past [KGB] experience, is inclined to a conspiratorial view and his remarks had a certain anti-American spin. Medvedev, on the other hand, does not think in cold war terms. He would like to see Russia on good terms with everybody and perhaps play the role of an intermediary in this situation,” Salin explained in the Christian Science Monitor.

Analyst Gleb Pavlovsky, said discord in the ruling tandem had “become a generator of nervousness” within the political elite, who, like most other Russians, are wondering which of the pair will run for president in next year's elections. According to Pavlovsky and other analysts, the uncertainty over who will be the candidate – assuming that Putin and Medvedev are true to their word and don't run against each other – is causing real unrest among Russia's elite and the leaders of their business community. Time magazine takes the opposite view though arguing that the Libya spat has given Medvedev a “confidence boost”. Time cites Russian political analsyt/spin doctor Evgeny Minchenko who claims that the Medvedev position of political reform at home and deeper international cooperation with the West is gaining favor among Russia's elites because “everybody wants to be in the same club as the global elites.”

At least one thing is certain, this will be an interesting year for Russian politics as Medvedev and Putin stake out their positions ahead of the 2012 elections.

Libya's Oil Games

Things are starting to get very interesting on the oil front of the conflict in Libya. As recently as last week, it seemed like the Libyan rebels had all but lost control over the country's oil fields and petroleum export terminals, which are concentrated in the eastern half of the country. Since the international coalition began their airstrikes though, the Libyan rebels have been able to win back much of the ground they lost and now once again control as much as 4/5ths of Libya's oil reserves, and contrary to the fears of global oil traders, they have managed to keep the fields in production, at least at some level of output.

Now the rebels have struck a deal with the tiny Persian Gulf state of Qatar to sell their oil on the global market. Under the terms of the agreement, Qatar will take the output from the rebel Libyan fields and sell it, with the money going into an escrow account for eventual use by the rebel government (Qatar also recognized the rebels as the legitimate government of Libya). The rebels say that this arrangement is good for them since it cuts out any middlemen and give them “access to liquidity in terms of foreign denominated currency.” The rebels claim that they will be able to pump between 100,000 and 130,000 barrels of oil per day “within a week” and soon could be exporting as much as 300,000 per day, though industry officials think this figure is optimistic given that many foreign oil technicians who oversaw production from the fields fled the country as the fighting broke out last month. While it's clear what the rebels get out of the deal, it's interesting to look at it from the Qatari side: is this a case of the tiny kingdom looking to step into a vacuum left by traditional Arab powers like Saudi Arabia in the Libyan crisis and strut their stuff on the international stage, or is it simply a shrewd business move to take advantage of an emerging economic opportunity?

On the other side of the coin, Moammar Gadhafi - working on the assumption that he will remain the leader of Libya - is threatening to impose sanctions on companies from the countries that “abandoned” him during the conflict. Paolo Scaroni, the CEO of Italian energy giant Eni said that Western firms were “shooting themselves in the foot” by imposing sanctions on the Gadhafi government, an argument that will win him few supporters among the governments currently involved in enforcing UNSC 1973 and the no-fly zone. Though you do have to wonder if Gadhafi's position influenced recent comments by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who condemned the Western-led no-fly zone, comparing it to the Crusades of the Middle Ages. Perhaps Putin is hoping for a post-conflict Libya where Gadhafi remains in power and Russian firms can increase their already sizable market share in the Libyan oil/natural gas industry by taking over the operations of “sanctioned” foreign companies.

If nothing else, the oil front is becoming one of the most interesting aspects of the Libyan conflict.