NATO's new Libya dilemma

The news from Libya today has been dominated by the atrocities committed by rebel forces, and I don't mean the decision to display Muammar Gaddafi's body in the meat section of a grocery store (he was a dictator, a villain, what do you expect?). New details about the dark side of the Libyan revolution have emerged. Representatives from Human Rights Watch have discovered the bodies of 53 Gaddafi loyalists who were shot last week in Sirte (the scene of the last battle of the current stage of the civil war) by anti-Gaddafi fighters from Misrata, in violation of the orders of the National Transitional Council (NTC) in Benghazi. Some of the victims had their hands bound. Meanwhile, the head of the NTC declared that Libya will follow Sharia law. But the most interesting aspect of the recent news out of Libya is how it is being perceived by the countries that took part in the NATO operation. Their media are beginning to dampen their enthusiasm for the revolution. Islamists in Benghazi For the general public, the big story is that another Arab dictator has been overthrown by the people in a revolution. Last week the European Union called Muammar Gaddafi's death "the end of the era of despotism," while U.S. President Barack Obama said: "This marks the end of a long and painful chapter for the people of Libya." But for people who have closely followed the events in Libya, the picture has always been complicated, all the more so now. On Monday, the headlines were dominated by the speech of the former justice minister under Gaddafi and now the head of the NTC Mustafa Abdel Jalil at a meeting in Tripoli. He said that Islamic Sharia law will be the basis for the laws in the newly liberated Libya and any existing laws that contradict it will be abolished. Foreign Affairs magazine, published by the Council on Foreign Relations (the key think tank for U.S. foreign policy), has been publishing article after article on the Islamic factor in Libya for months, recalling that Abdul Hakim Belhadj, a key figure in the NTC, was a member of an Libyan Islamist militant group in Afghanistan in the 1990s. After the 9/11 attacks some of his associates spent time in Guantanamo and other illegal terrorist detention centers (where some totally innocent people were also kept - these issues are now a subject of heated debates in the United States). The results of the elections in Tunisia, the scene of another revolution in North Africa, are about to be declared. Will Islamists win there? The revolutions in the Middle East have become a big headache for the United States and the EU, which have decided to put a good face on the matter and lend verbal support to "the forces against dictatorships." However, now that the "mad dog of the Middle East" is dead, a new game is beginning, and it remains unclear where the participants in the NATO operation in Libya stand. Clearly, the optimistic statements are meant for public consumption, even if there is some optimism in Western capitals. But this will not last for long, as the proclamation of Sharia laws in Libya is bad news for those who helped the NTC seize power. NATO operation as a precedent Experts have thoroughly analyzed the lessons and consequences of the Libyan operation, but it is still unclear what to do next. The former British ambassador to Libya, Sir Richard Dalton, writes about the Libyan future: "That this future is uncertain does not call into question whether we were right to do what we did, but uncertain it is." In other words, everything was done right. Sir Dalton also quotes David Cameron and Nicholas Sarkozy's main conditions for NATO's intervention in similar conflicts in the future, stressing "legality, regional support and achievability." There are also other articles tracing the similarities among the U.S. and NATO wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq... These operations cannot be called brilliant successes, albeit for different reasons. But the key issue here is not about the justification for foreign ground operations. The key issue is whether it is worth spending huge amounts of money and effort (including military efforts) on nation building after the operation is over. It all boils down to spending. NATO is now trying to resolve this agonizing issue - can it leave Libya to the winners (the NTC and another two major groups) or will nation building become a necessity. For now, the conclusions are far from optimistic. The afore-mentioned Council on Foreign Relations has conducted an expert analysis of the situation after Gaddafi's recent death and revealed the key problems. These include the complicated relations between the residents of Tripoli (who think they have played the decisive role in the war against Gaddafi) and the numerous units from the desert and provinces that have now flooded the capital. Another problem is the explosive combination of three factors - remaining loyalist forces (loyal to Gaddafi or his son), the huge and uncontrollable reserves of weapons and a more active role of radical Islamists in the NTC. There should be no delusions - NATO will have to remain involved in Libya in some form. That much has been said already, at least among experts.