U.S. Needs Time to Evacuate Libya

U.S. President Barack Obama has ended his silence over the “unacceptable violence” in Libya, revealing his two main priorities: averting a hostage situation in Tripoli and ensuring a multilateral response to the crisis.

Following accusations in the media that the White House was being “silent before the slaughter,” Obama spoke from the Grand Foyer in the White House. With Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at his side, he denied the charge that the U.S. was guilty of practicing a double standard, actively supporting transition in Egypt while remaining indifferent to the ongoing massacre in Libya.

“Like all governments, the Libyan government has a responsibility to refrain from violence, to allow humanitarian assistance to reach those in need, and to respect the rights of its people,” he said. Obama also referred to the more than 5,000 U.S. citizens waiting on the docks of Tripoli to board ferries to Malta. There is a currently an exodus of foreigners from Libya, and it is feared that they could become hostages at any moment.

U.S. diplomats and military forces are managing the situation in great secrecy, with the cooperation of allied nations, and they are negotiating with the authorities in the Libyan capital, where Qaddafi is still in charge. It is not clear why the ferries have not yet left the port, which is near Green Square, but until that happens Obama has his hands tied.

There is concern that the Obama administration could find itself confronting a hostage situation far graver than the one in which U.S. Embassy staff were seized in Tehran in 1979. As for a resolution to the Libyan crisis, the president spoke of “national and multilateral options under study,” stressing the importance that “the nations and peoples of the world speak with one voice.” He said that he welcomed the unanimous position against the violence taken by the Arab League, the European Union, the Organization of Islamic Conference and the UN Security Council.

U.S. envoy Bill Burton is leaving for North Africa, while Clinton will travel to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, where the White House hopes to mobilize an international response to the crisis, unlike in Egypt, where the U.S. held the reins of the relationship with Hosni Mubarak.

At the UN, Ambassador Susan Rice is working to find common ground with her Russian and Chinese colleagues beyond the formal statement of condemnation that passed unanimously. France and Britain, along with other Europeans, are pushing for humanitarian aid to be sent to areas bearing the brunt of Qaddafi’s repression, starting in Benghazi. Beijing, however, is reluctant to endorse any international interference that could establish a precedent for crises in other areas, such as Tibet.

The negotiations are delicate, but Washington is confident that international cohesion is the most effective way to pressure Qaddafi, in part because “many countries have much closer relations with Libya than the United States,” as Clinton pointed out in an oblique reference to Great Britain, Italy and France.

The necessity of gaining time to complete the evacuation from Tripoli gives diplomacy a chance to secure a joint resolution at the UN. Among the proposals being explored are the creation of a “no-fly zone,” as happened in Iraqi Kurdistan following the Gulf War of 1991, and the provision of “humanitarian missions,” such as the one sent to Haiti in 2004 through an agreement between Washington, Paris and Brasilia.

Whichever resolution emerges from the consultations at the UN, however, it will almost certainly involve the countries most at risk of a new Somalia in the middle of the Mediterranean, namely the Europeans, beginning with Italy.