Yet another 'mission creep' in the making

The incremental involvement of foreign forces in Libya, ‘mission creep’, is taking place at a steady pace. On Monday, Nato aircraft bombed buildings in Col Muammar Gadhafi’s compound in Tripoli and last week unmanned ‘predator’ drones were deployed to conduct surgical strikes on regime targets.

‘Mission creep’ is a term used to describe how the US was gradually sucked into the Vietnam war (1955-75) after deploying military advisers to aid the South Vietnamese government in the war against the Communist north. For the US, which lost that war, ‘mission creep’ is a nightmare scenario.

Nevertheless, ‘mission creep’ was, at US insistence, written into UN Security Council resolution 1973. On one hand, it authorised a no-fly zone to prevent Gadhafi’s air force from attacking rebel held towns and cities. This was interpreted as extending protection to rebel fighters defending their areas from his ground forces. This aspect of the effort has evolved to the point that foreign war planes are providing air cover for rebel fighters conducting operations against regime forces.

On the other hand, the resolution called for the use of ‘all necessary measures’ short of occupation to protect civilians. This means foreign troops are allowed if they do not stay on as an occupying army. Britain, France and Italy have each decided to dispatch a dozen military advisers to offer advice on organisation and logistics to rebel scratch units of poorly armed civilians.

Non-lethal assistance

Materiel is also being sent.  Britain has provided flack-jackets and other equipment and the US has pledged $25 million in non-lethal assistance. Qatar, which has supplied fighter jets to monitor the no-fly zone, has delivered modern weapons to the rebels who have been fighting with obsolete arms from captured dumps.

‘Mission creep’ was inescapable once it became clear that inexperienced rebel fighters without command structures could not stand against units of Gadhafi’s regular armed forces and mercenaries that outnumber and outgun the rebels.

The first task of the protection effort was to prevent the rebels from being defeated in Benghazi at a time Gadhafi’s forces were mounting a successful offensive in the east. By  bombing his armour, vehicles and troops, the Nato-led allies prevented a massacre and humanitarian disaster as well as the collapse of the uprising.

The western forces are now faced with the same prospect in Misrata, the sole significant rebel-held city on the western side of the country. Misrata, partly occupied by Gadhafi’s troops and partly by the rebels, has become a major strategic, psychological and political objective for him. Its fall after weeks of siege, would be an important propaganda victory for  the regime as well as the first step in crushing resistance to Gadhafi’s rule in the west of the country before launching another offensive in the east.

Combat troops have not yet been offered but European Union foreign affairs spokeswoman Catherine Ashton has suggested the deployment of 1,000 European troops to protect the delivery of aid supplies, particularly to Misrata.

Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC), which speaks for the rebels, has not taken a unified stand on this proposal.  It was rejected by Guma al-Gamaty, the Britain-based coordinator for the TNC, but accepted by a TNC spokesman in Benghazi. People in Misrata are calling for the allies to honour the terms of resolution 1973 by providing troops and weapons as well as using their air power to strike Gadhafi’s artillery has been relentlessly shelling the city.

The spectre of ‘mission creep’ is preventing France, Italy, Britain and, particularly, the US from responding decisively to Misrata. They are afraid of being accused by opponents of the mission of launching a fresh neo-colonial adventure comparable to George W Bush’s disastrous wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. The fact that the western allies have made it clear that the only solution for Libya is ‘regime change’ makes the intervention all the more difficult for opponents to accept.

They include India, Brazil, and many African countries which are hypersensitive to western intervention in the Third World. Russia and China, two permanent UNSC members, are also opposed. They face serious unrest among minorities that could call on the UNSC to use the Libyan precedent to offer them protection.

There is no going back for the allies. If Gadhafi sees that his campaign against the rebels is set to prosper, he will persist with his attacks on Misrata and Benghazi. But if the comes to understand that he is certain to be defeated, he might be persuaded to accept a ceasefire and exile for himself and his family rather than carry on, risking defeat and ending up in prison awaiting trial for war crimes.