The European Council on Foreign Relations

Libya: a history of cringe-inducing diplomacy

Date: 2nd September 2011  |  Author: Richard Gowan,

Categories: Middle East and North Africa,
Tags: , arab revolutions, libya, un

As the Libyan war enters its final phase, a lot of European diplomats will want to declare victory and move on. While the fall of Gaddafi is a cause for celebration, the fact that the EU and NATO split over how to respond to the crisis in the spring is a cause of embarrassment. There’s little doubt that the episode has left the EU’s status as a foreign policy actor in question. The Economist cites a British official’s dismissive claim that “we didn’t even consult the EU” when it came to the UN resolution on the use of force.

It would be nice to erase all memories of this painful diplomatic episode. But it would also be an error. If the EU is to evolve as a global player, it will have to learn from its mistakes. This might sound like common sense, but anyone who has spent time in Brussels knows that the diplomatic community there is very good at forgetting failures.

The EU is hardly alone in facing tough questions over its performance over Libya. The African Union and Arab League must take responsibility for some exceedingly erratic diplomacy. Major rising powers – not least Brazil, India and South Africa, all vying for permanent seats on the Security Council – failed to make a serious impact. In the US, President Obama has been praised for fighting a clever war alongside his NATO allies, but Washingtonians haven’t forgotten how his administration split over the war as well.

It’s hard to get a grip on all these twists and turns, however, because the war has been both complicated and intermittently overshadowed by other crises, not least those in Syria and the eurozone. Both supporters and opponents of military action have accused each other of twisting the historical record to justify or discredit NATO’s bombing.

Sensing that the fog of war would obscure the diplomatic subtleties of the Libyan campaign, my colleagues Emily O’Brien and Andrew Sinclair at NYU have kept a detailed log of international negotiations over the conflict since March. The result is The Libyan War: A Diplomatic History, a narrative that runs from the first protests in Tripoli to the rebel assault on the city this month. You can download it by clicking here.

The report is based on open sources, and there are surely many revelations to come about what went on behind the scenes. But the descriptions of the EU’s compromises and circumlocutions at the start of the conflict include some truly cringe-inducing episodes:

During an emergency summit in Brussels on 11^th March, the EU came to an agreement to consider “all necessary options” to protect civilians in Libya, and called on Gaddafi to give up power. The statement did not make reference to recent French and British calls for a no-fly zone. It did note that any proposed military action would require a clear legal basis – in other words, a UN mandate – regional support and a clear purpose. German chancellor Angela Merkel described herself as “fundamentally sceptical” of military action. Sarkozy, by contrast, indicated that France and Britain were contemplating airstrikes in Libya.

All this feels very far removed from the suffering that Gaddafi’s forces were inflicting back in March – and the scrappy, ugly war that followed.  It’s worth reading the whole report to grasp how we’ve got to where we are today in Libya. But it also offers food for thought about how to handle fast-moving crises of this type more credibly in future.

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