Is Moammar Gadhafi on the verge of crushing the Libyan uprising?
If it's not that bad for the resistance to Gadhafi, it's getting there. Not only has Gadhafi retaken the oil refinery town of Ras Lunuf, but his forces are moving eastward to the rebel capital of Benghazi. About 100 kilometers west of Benghazi is the town of Ajdabiya, the fallback position for the rebels to take their stand; Gadhafi's already started shelling the place.
In the west, the rebels still hold Misrata, Libya's third largest city, but Gadhafi's challenging them there as well. It's little wonder that al-Jazeera's reporter in Benghazi, Tony Birtley, observed, "It seems like we are entering the final phase of the conflict but whether this revolution will fail or succeed, that will only be determined in the coming weeks."
International assistance doesn't look to be on the horizon. The Arab League asked the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, but Russia and China are holdouts. And it's hardly clear that the U.S. is going to forcefully back a resolution calling for a costly, open-ended attack on Gadhafi's planes and helicopters.
What about a NATO operation? Not as long as Turkey continues to oppose it. On Monday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called intervention "totally counterproductive." That's further than retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO commander, has gone. But Clark probably spoke for many in uniform when he argued on Friday that intervention isn't in the U.S.'s interest.
That earned Clark a rebuke from Anne-Marine Slaughter, until recently a top State Department official, who contends that the U.S. needs to seize "an opportunity to establish a new narrative of Western support for Arab democrats."
Slaughter's old boss, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, is in Paris today to meet with representatives of the Libyan opposition. But it's not like their positions are unclear: they want a no-fly zone; and the U.S. and its allies are balking at that step. NATO is willing to provide humanitarian aid to the Libyan rebels,fly surveillance planes and say it's doing serious prep for any further action -- but not much more. What could come out of Clinton's meetings to make the U.S. or NATO more enthusiastic about intervention?
Photo: Flickr/AlJazeeraEnglish
See Also:- NATO Places Unblinking Eyes Over Libya, 24-7 | Danger Room | Wired.com
