No Lobby for Bahrain

Some in the Western alliance against Libya, mainly French President Sarkozy and NATO General Secretary Rasmussen, want the United Nations to declare a no-fly zone over Libya in order to prevent Moammar Gadhafi from attacking the last remaining rebel strongholds. But this is an internal Libyan affair; as long as it can’t be shown that Gadhafi is responsible for serious human rights violations that call for immediate countermeasures, international law does not apply. That is, in theory.

But here in Europe, the Libyan rebels have amassed nearly all the media sympathy points available, while Gadhafi goes away empty-handed. There are plausible reasons for this, none of which may have anything to do with the principled stances we hear in favor of protecting human beings and their inalienable rights. If they did, the heads of our constitutional governments would have had to raise an outcry when Saudi Arabia sent its troops and tanks into Bahrain to attack demonstrators there two days ago.

But they did nothing despite the fact that the rebels in Bahrain — in contrast to those in Libya — had been peacefully demonstrating for political reforms. A clear majority favors such reforms, and the demonstrators have never questioned the legitimacy of the monarchy. But human rights or not, nobody here in Europe wants to risk angering the oil despots in Riyadh with any questions. And neither does their great protector, whose Fifth Fleet sits in Bahrain’s harbor with its 5,000 military personnel, trying to look like they just happened to be there for a visit and have nothing to do with any of this.