PROCÈS-VERBAL

During the ramp up, the rhetoric surrounding Qadhafi and his violent crackdown on protesters was bad enough. While I’m not even thinking about defending some of his actions, the rhetoric was demonic. Qadhafi is no worse than the al-Khalifa royal family in Bahrain, the al-Sauds, Bashar al-Assad in Syria or the regime in Khartoum. Unfortunately for him, Qadhafi had Lockerbie in his past and that sealed his fate.

While I reading that more and more Americans are having trouble with the White House’s actions regarding Libya, and while I have definite opinions about the War Powers Resolution (which I’ve been fairly strident about), this post is about the diplomatic and human fallout.
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One of Solzhenitsyn’s most chilling stories concerned a birthday party for Comrade Stalin, held in a small, out-of-the-way town. Stalin was, of course, no where in sight, but still there were speeches and applause. Without thinking, the mayor of the town rose and exhorted his fellows to one last cheer for the evening to the honor of Stalin.

The applause continued for minutes without stopping and everyone was growing weary, but who would dare to be the first to stop clapping? As the labored applause wore on an old man collapsed. Finally the mayor allowed his arms to drop and the noise died. The next evening the mayor was sentenced to the gulag, and no charges were ever spoken against him. As he stepped into the train, a party official whispered into his ear, “Never be the first one to stop clapping.” — David Sisler

This was not the post I orginally thought to write. It’d be very easy to dump on Congress for their disgraceful looking performance this week during Benjamin Netanyayu’s address to Congress:

and I wouldn’t be the first. Stephen Walt already has, and linked to more (here, here, here and here). None of which I have a problem with. So lets be clear on what happened here: Bibi came to town to reconnect with AIPAC and then press home the threat with Congress, who knew very well what was going on.

Kabuki? No. This is great power politics in action.
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Well. I hate love to say I told you so, but yes, this is what I predicted over a month ago.

Today, Colum Lynch reports on the UN Security Council’s attitude toward Syria, and they aren’t in the mood to listen to the interventionist bloc at the moment:

The current dispute over Syria “is the hang over from Libya,” one council diplomat told Turtle Bay. “China and Russia feel a bit betrayed because the coalition went further than what was in the resolution. It diminished the possibility of replicating the Libya model in Yemen and Syria,” where Russia and China have blocked action.

(Emphasis mine)

Not that I’m calling for another bombing campaign, I’m most definitely not, but this is real fallout for overreaching in Libya. The mission approved by the Security Council was civilian protection, as established by international norm. Regime change was unilateral.
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(h/t to Laura Rozen aka The Cable, blogging at Foreign Policy)

This one makes my bullshit antennae twitch, or is our first salvo in a post-bin Laden world of our efforts to eradicate Islamic terror and isolate Iran (yes, Iran).

Or it is just more of the pure power politics of the same stripe which cost Yemen $73 million in US aid when it failed to vote for Desert Storm in 1991, after which the American ambassador famously said to his colleague from Yemen, “That was the most expensive vote you will have cast.”
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