ON MONDAY, NATO formally ended its mission in Libya, which it has hailed as one of its “most successful” so far. Its air strikes played a key role in the overthrow and subsequent killing of former president Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
The no-fly zone and naval blockade, enforced by NATO since March 31, ended as stipulated by a United Nation (UN) Security Council resolution last week that closed the mandate authorizing military action.
It would perhaps shock many people that NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Monday said any intervention in Syria is totally ruled out.
“We have no intention whatsoever to intervene in Syria,” he said when asked if there was a possibility NATO would now spearhead a no-fly zone there.
Given this response, two questions must be faced squarely if the world order is to have any semblance of security or fairness. The first is whether NATO would have acted as it did had Gaddafi not abandoned his nuclear programme in 2004.
Iran and North Korea will draw their own conclusions. Pakistan and India would feel amply justified in their acquisition of the bomb in the world of today. It may become increasingly difficult to get countries to abandon their nuclear ambitions.
The second question that must be faced is: what impact will Western intervention in Libya have on the world order? We have hardly recovered from the war on Iraq, launched unilaterally, without the sanction of the UN Security Council, and under a smokescreen of weapons of mass destruction.
Despite declared intentions, the overriding objective seems to have been a drive for regime change in the oil-rich country of Libya. United States President Barack Obama declared late February that Gaddafi “must go”.
The Security Council adopted Resolution 1973 in March, but it did not authorize attacks on Libya. Still less did the resolution authorize aerial attacks or military aid to the rebels.
How did NATO come into this at all?
The North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 was confined to “an armed attack on the territory of any of the parties in Europe or North America”. Algeria was included because France claimed that it was an integral part of its territory.
The then US Secretary of State Dean Acheson said at a Press conference on March 18, 1949, that “purely internal revolutionary activity would not be regarded as an armed attack; a revolutionary activity inspired, armed, directed from outside, however, was a different matter”.
The UN charter has increasingly come under pressure and to some extent challenge. Significantly, the auspices of the International Criminal Court were invoked shortly after the Libyan crisis erupted, leaving Gaddafi perhaps with little option but to fight on.
There may indeed be a need to undertake a thorough investigation into the events in Libya leading up to Gaddafi’s demise.
