Nobody loved the colonel

It was pure meltdown following a classical revolution pitting the people against the tyrant.

I write this blog as Libyans are celebrating in what used to be Green Square. As a historian I cannot but bless my luck having had the chance to see the fall of three regimes in a few months, live on the TV and PC screens. Anyone suggesting that this would happen a year ago would have been considered crazy.

But it comes as no surprise. For history is full of examples of sudden outbursts of freedom emerging like magma from the underground malaise, boiling for decades. When people lose fear everything is possible. It seems that nobody really loved the Colonel to the extent of risking his life for him. It was pure meltdown. The rebels' orderly advance in the city exposed the quackery of the so-called experts who predicted all sorts of cataclysm ranging from tribal civil war to the division of the country. It was the sort of fears played upon by Saif al Islam and by Ibrahim Moussa right up to the very end. The latter deserves an award for continuing the tradition of his Iraqi predecessor for entertaining us with the wildest claims.

From the beginning, my hunch was that this was a classical revolution against the tyrant spurred by the fundamental desire of modern Libyans to live a normal life, free from fear and empty anti imperialistic rhetoric. This desire for normality felt by human beings could well be the most overlooked aspect of the Arab Spring.

The overthrow of a Nero-like tyrant like Gaddafi gives us more reasons to celebrate. My heart bleeds for the hundreds of young people who gave up their everyday jobs to take up arms against a brutal armed dictatorship.

For me the Libyan war represents a turning point. For the first time I came to praise western military action which proved as vital for the outcome as US and British intervention in Italy in 1943. Like Mussolini, Gaddafi was militarily stronger than the partigiani, many of which ditched ideological prejudice to fight side by side with the Americans.

It also turns out that there was a method to what seemed a slow moving campaign. Caution has been rewarded. There have been relatively few civilian casualties and the rebels have largely shown restraint.

Critics are justified in doubting the sincerity of western intervention. I am not naive to believe that they are doing all this simply to help the rebels. And even more significantly the success in Libya rehabilitates the whole notion of humanitarian interventionism which was fatally crippled by Iraq. War is horrible and must be avoided but it is legitimate to avoid or stop crimes against humanity whenever the logistics permit.

Moreover Europe emerges stronger. For the first time since World War II Europeans have not relied on the American policeman to sort out the mess. The British and the French have this time given a significant contribution. Surely they did not intervene exclusively out of sheer idealism. But all those speculating that this is all about oil should ask the question: didn't they have a better deal with Gaddafi? Dictators have always been the best clients. Democratic openings are always risky. One should just look at the way Egypt is now acting more independently with regards to Israel. Democracies have to answer to the people.

And what the people want does not necessarily correspond to what the US, Israel and the oil companies want. A freer Libya will be less easy to control than a family dynasty. Let us not not forget Berlusconi's first reaction: when asked whether he had phoned the Colonel he replied that he preferred not to disturb him. Had the West followed Berlusconi’s example it would have acted out of sheer self interest. It did not. Still, normalisation in Libya would be good for business and investment. And that is good for both Libyans and the west.

A more pragmatic assessment suggests that apart from genuine sympathy for the Arab Spring, what prompted Western intervention was the assumption that it is better to earn the goodwill of rebels (and through this, access to oil contracts) rather than face the prospect of dealing with an unpresentable Gaddafi regime for the next couple of decades. So how could they do deals with someone with so much blood on his hands. So why now? The answer is simple: the world has changed radically. After 1989 it was impossible to dismiss the Arab Spring.

So why intervene in Libya and not in Syria? Clearly there seems to be the same justification for such an intervention and if the Syrians are demanding it and the conditions were right I would support it. There are five main reasons why a military intervention is at the moment not sustainable:

1) The Syrian regime has full backing of army which controls the entire country;

2) Contrary to Libya there are no liberated areas facing a military offensive from the desert, a scenario which made military intervention to stop Gaddafi from eliminating Benghazi feasible;

3) Syria is damn close to Israel and any western intervention could be perceived as a crusade fought on the same grounds of the 12th century crusades;

4) Syrian regime can destabilize Lebanon,Iraq and Palestine through its proxies and alliance with Iran;

5) Unlike the Libyans the Syrian rebels are not calling for military intervention. Another reason could be that Syria is not as oil rich as Libya. I think the last point is relevant but the five reasons I gave here are more relevant. Moreover it is extremely unlikely that China and Russia would vote for military action against Syria. Still the rebel victory in Libya is bad news for Assad and other dictators.

Some fear that a civil war is imminent. I am more optimistic. The march on Tripoli started in the Nafusa mountains, Misurata (the second largest city of Tripolitania) and the west of Libya.There is no civil war between east and west. Probably loyalists and mercenaries will still be a destabilising force for some time but events on the ground suggest otherwise.

Sirte could also pose a problem. But Libya is neither Syria nor Iraq. There is reason to hope. That does not mean that there are no risks of the country slipping in a whirlpool of violence if the rebels do not immediately restore order to ensure the resumption of every day life which makes violence redundant and counterproductive. Hope they will not repeat the mistake made by the Americans in Iraq when they banned all Bath Party members from public life.

But I am sure that the Libyans can give a lesson to racists who believe that Arabs are incapable of building a democracy. It might not follow western paradigms but probably it will have a liberal element. They are as capable of doing so as the Germans, the Italians and the Japanese after the Second World War. Good luck Libya.