The Anatomy of the Unwanted War in Libya

Neither NATO nor the Arab Union would have wanted it to reach this point. If only Gadhafi had also given up his position after the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt without shedding too much blood. How did we get this far? Let us begin the analysis with how the White House arrived at the decision to intervene. This decision was very difficult for Obama. After all, Obama is a leader who opposed the Iraq War and is an unenthusiastic continuer of the war in Afghanistan. The White House did not have the slightest desire to embark on a new adventure in Libya. So how did things change all of a sudden in the short span of a week? Three fundamental factors must be pointed out. First of all, the fact that Gadhafi was not a rational actor was a crucial factor. That he was crazy enough to massacre the people in Benghazi who were in rebellion against him also shifted the thinking. America did not want to risk remaining as a mere audience to the spectacle of hundreds of thousands of rebels being killed by Gadhafi.

The second factor that played an important role in the White House’s decision was that an international consensus supported intervention. It was very important for Obama that this war did not become “America’s imperialist war.” If there was one thing that Obama wanted even less than a military intervention, it was for the United States to act on its own, without the support of the international community. This is why the endorsement of both the Arab Union and the European Union was very important. When the U.N. Security Council passed, with a large majority, a resolution that authorized all measures against the Gadhafi regime in order to protect civilians, this legitimized the intervention, according to international law. As a result, the United States is not, at this point in time, the only country involved in the military intervention in Libya. Under U.N. auspices, a large coalition of volunteer nations, including European and Arab countries, is acting with the United States. It is very important for Washington that France and the U.K. are leading the mission and that regional countries like Qatar, Lebanon and Egypt are supportive of the intervention.

The third factor that made it necessary for Obama to intervene was the change in the political balance in the cabinet, as well as in Washington as a whole. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and Counterterror Adviser John Brennan had been unenthusiastic about a military intervention from the beginning; they were from the “realist” side. But opposing them and in support of intervention were the following “idealists”: Susan Rice, who was Assistant Secretary of State during the Rwanda genocide and is now the U.S. representative to the United Nations; and from the Senate, John Kerry, John McCain and Joe Lieberman; and in addition, the White House Director of the Office of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, Samantha Power. Hillary Clinton initially seemed undecided. Ultimately, Clinton’s lining up with the supporters of intervention, and dragging with her the international community, was the factor that conclusively shifted the balance.

Now let us look at what Turkey’s role looks like from Washington. Perception always creates reality. In the very first weeks, the Turkish government stood very strongly against a possible military intervention in Libya. But this stance seemed to some like a search for an impossible balance, and according to others, it was seen as “supporting Gadhafi.” Perhaps most importantly, Washington could not understand why Ankara was constantly accusing the Western countries of chasing their economic interests in Libya when Turkey itself had invested $30 million in Libyan construction.

At the point we are at now, many Western officials are tired of Turkey maintaining an overly suspicious attitude toward the West. According to them, Turkey, as the only Muslim nation in NATO, must get beyond the attitude that “the West brings more troubles to the East than benefits.” They are unhappy that the AK [Justice and Development] Party — which is always accusing the West of having an “anti-Orientalist” bias — can also sometimes have a similar “anti-Occidentalist” prejudice.