In a New York Times op-ed earlier this week, retired U.S. general James Dubik reiterated the need for some sort of post-conflict peacekeeping force in Libya:
If Colonel Qaddafi falls, the United States and NATO will have a responsibility to help shape the postwar order, including providing security to prevent a liberated Libya from sinking into chaos.
The responsibility for security, reconstruction and nation-building will likely fall to the United Nations, which would mean deploying a multinational peacekeeping force in Libya, including troops from the United States, NATO and Arab nations.
The case for a peacekeeping force is hard to argue with, as Bruce Jones, Jake Sherman and I pointed out on the Foreign Policy website earlier in April. But I doubt that Leon Panetta wants to begin his time at the Pentagon by ordering U.S. ground troops into Libya. And while I did suggest at the start of the war that European peacekeepers might be an option, the EU’s proposals for sending a small humanitarian force have stalled. The idea that relatively impartial non-European powers like Brazil and India could deploy excites more objections than enthusiasm.
So who’s left? One idea that is kicking around, as I note in a new article for Abu Dhabi’s The National, is an all-Muslim or all-Arab peacekeeping force. It’s not a 100% original notion:
In 1987, Muammar Qaddafi had one of his many bold strategic ideas. As the Iran-Iraq war dragged on, he proposed the dispatch of an Islamic peacekeeping force to end the conflict. He suggested that Algeria, Indonesia and Nigeria could supply troops.
The Iranians dismissed the idea, which promptly died. But nearly quarter of a century later, with Qaddafi and his foes locked in indecisive combat, some strategists are asking if Arab and/or Muslim peacekeepers could now be deployed in Libya.
While French, American and British aircraft have led Nato’s campaign over Libya – and the European Union has approved military operations to deliver aid – Western officials fear that a follow-on stabilisation mission would be costly, open-ended and dangerous. Islamist terrorists have killed Spanish peacekeepers in Lebanon and UN staff in Algeria, while French commandos have skirmished with Al Qaeda in the Maghreb. Sending sizeable Western forces to Libya could look like an invitation to further attacks.
By contrast, a largely Arab or Muslim force might have greater legitimacy – or at least present a politically problematic target to Al Qaeda and its affiliates. This view isn’t confined to worried Western analysts either. Last month Farhan Bokhari, a Pakistani commentator, argued that Libya shows the need for the formation of a “pan-Islamic peacekeeping force” ready to intervene in emergencies in Muslim countries.
Is there a real chance of such a force deploying to Libya?
Read the rest of the article to find out…
