Op-Ed Columnist

Looking for Luck in Libya

Published: March 29, 2011

Josh Haner/The New York Times

Thomas L. Friedman

When an entire region that has been living outside the biggest globaltrends of free politics and free markets for half a century suddenly,from the bottom up, decides to join history — and each one of thesestates has a different ethnic, tribal, sectarian and politicalorientation and a loose coalition of Western and Arab states with mixedmotives trying to figure out how to help them — well, folks, you’regoing to end up with some very strange-looking policy animals. And Libyais just the first of many hard choices we’re going to face in the “new”Middle East.

How could it not be? In Libya, we have to figure out whether to helprebels we do not know topple a terrible dictator we do not like, whileat the same time we turn a blind eye to a monarch whom we do like inBahrain, who has violently suppressed people we also like — Bahrainidemocrats — because these people we like have in their ranks people wedon’t like: pro-Iranian Shiite hard-liners. All the while in SaudiArabia, leaders we like are telling us we never should have let go ofthe leader who was so disliked by his own people — Hosni Mubarak — and,while we would like to tell the Saudi leaders to take a hike on thissubject, we can’t because they have so much oil and money that we like.And this is a lot like our dilemma in Syria where a regime we don’t like— and which probably killed the prime minister of Lebanon whom itdisliked — could be toppled by people who say what we like, but we’renot sure they all really believe what we like because among them couldbe Sunni fundamentalists, who, if they seize power, could suppress allthose minorities in Syria whom they don’t like.

The last time the Sunni fundamentalists in Syria tried to take over in1982, then-President Hafez al-Assad, one of those minorities, definitelydid not like it, and he had 20,000 of those Sunnis killed in one citycalled Hama, which they certainly didn’t like, so there is a lot of badblood between all of them that could very likely come to the surfaceagain, although some experts say this time it’s not like that becausethis time, and they could be right, the Syrian people want freedom forall. But, for now, we are being cautious. We’re not trying nearly ashard to get rid of the Syrian dictator as we are the Libyan one becausethe situation in Syria is just not as clear as we’d like and becauseSyria is a real game-changer. Libya implodes. Syria explodes.

Welcome to the Middle East of 2011! You want the truth about it? Youcan’t handle the truth. The truth is that it’s a dangerous, violent,hope-filled and potentially hugely positive or explosive mess — fraughtwith moral and political ambiguities. We have to build democracy in theMiddle East we’ve got, not the one we want — and this is the one we’vegot.

That’s why I am proud of my president, really worried about him, and just praying that he’s lucky.

Unlike all of us in the armchairs, the president had to choose, and Ifound the way he spelled out his core argument on Monday sincere: “Somenations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in othercountries. The United States of America is different. And, as president,I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves beforetaking action.”

I am glad we have a president who sees America that way. That argumentcannot just be shrugged off, especially when confronting a dictator likeCol. Muammar el-Qaddafi. But, at the same time, I believe that it isnaïve to think that we can be humanitarians only from the air — and nowwe just hand the situation off to NATO, as if it were Asean and we werenot the backbone of the NATO military alliance, and we’re done.

I don’t know Libya, but my gut tells me that any kind of decent outcomethere will require boots on the ground — either as military help for therebels to oust Qaddafi as we want, or as post-Qaddafi peacekeepers andreferees between tribes and factions to help with any transition todemocracy. Those boots cannot be ours. We absolutely cannot afford it —whether in terms of money, manpower, energy or attention. But I amdeeply dubious that our allies can or will handle it without us, either.And if the fight there turns ugly, or stalemates, people will becalling for our humanitarian help again. You bomb it, you own it.

Which is why, most of all, I hope President Obama is lucky. I hopeQaddafi’s regime collapses like a sand castle, that the Libyanopposition turns out to be decent and united and that they require just abare minimum of international help to get on their feet. Then U.S.prestige will be enhanced and this humanitarian mission will have bothsaved lives and helped to lock another Arab state into the democraticcamp.

Dear Lord, please make President Obama lucky.