Incoherent Libya policy of liberals

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Melanie Phillips:

One can only gape in stunned amazement at the extent of the idiocy being displayed by the leaders of America, Britain and Europe over the ‘Arab Spring’ – which should surely be renamed ‘the Arab Boomerang’.

First of all, their declared policy is utterly incoherent. They claim that their aim in Libya is not regime change. Yet bombing Gaddafy’s compound hardly signals their desire that he should stay alive, let alone in power. Yesterday Obama said Gaddafy should leave power. Today he said overthrowing Gaddafy by force would be a mistake. In similar vein, Britain’s Foreign Secretary William Hague says the UK wants Gaddafy to leave power -- but that’s not regime change, because apparently it’s up to him to decide to do so. Presumably, for both Hague and Obama, if Gaddafy did decide to give up power this would have nothing whatever to do with the fact that they are bombing Libyan forces fighting for him to retain power. And they would also have us believe that the fact that the western air strikes are enabling the Libyan rebels to advance does not mean that the west intends its air strikes to enable the rebels to advance.

One is reminded of Humpty Dumpty, who told Alice in Through the Looking Glass: ‘When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less’. Especially where the restrictive wording of a UN resolution is involved.

And what might the results of this incoherent support for freedom against tyranny be? Well, in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood appears to be in pole position to come to power in the elections planned for later this year. And in Libya, either Gaddafy will survive, in which case the begetter of the atrocity against the west over Lockerbie will doubtless be sufficiently enraged against the west to return to anti-western terror; or, should he fall, there seems to be a more than sporting chance that the Islamists he has until now fought off will eventually come out on top.

...
There is more.

There is a lot we do not know at this point on how events will unfold in the Middle East. We better hope for luck because this policy does not look sufficient to achieve the results we desire.
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