WASHINGTON: As the US and European armed forces enter their first week of operations against Libya, many are asking: Why the double standard? Why intervene in Libya and not other Arab states like Bahrain or Yemen, where the governments are similarly putting down domestic uprisings with deadly force?
Senior US administration officials have rejected the comparison and charges of hypocrisy, pointing to the heightened level of violence in Libya and the UN resolution as justification for military action.
When asked at a briefing on Sunday why the US chose to act in one country and not another, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said: 'I would point to both the scale of violence being committed against civilians and the imminent potential for atrocities (in Libya).
'(Colonel Muammar Gaddafi) was essentially telling a city of 700,000 people that he would show no mercy. So we thought that we were on the precipice of what could be a truly humanitarian catastrophe. And that was what drove both the calls from the Arab League and others, and the action of the international community.'
Beleaguered Libyan leader Gaddafi warned rebels and their sympathisers in the eastern city of Benghazi last week that he would hunt them down from door to door and show 'no pity'. Hundreds of protesters are already dead from clashes with Libyan security forces since an uprising against the Gaddafi regime broke out last month.
Critics, however, point to the fact that the governments of Yemen and Bahrain have cracked down just as harshly on their own people.
Last week, Yemeni government snipers killed at least 40 people and injured scores of protesters who were staging the largest demonstration yet against President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The death toll appeared to be lower in Bahrain, though the government had signalled that it meant business by inviting troops from other Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia to help stamp out the rising dissent. Security forces also demolished a protest camp last week, and tore down a major monument that had been a symbol of the month-long uprising.
In both instances, the White House urged 'restraint', but gave no indication that it was considering any active intervention as in the case of Libya - a move that sparked considerable criticism in the American media and foreign policy circle.
Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson asked: 'What makes it any easier to watch other despots do the same thing (as Col Gaddafi)?'
Mr Leslie Gelb, a prominent foreign policy commentator who served in previous administrations, accused Washington of 'phony analogies and unabashed hypocrisy' in justifying its actions in Libya.
However, not everyone shares that stinging indictment of US intention. Mr Mark Quarterman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies wrote: 'Multilateral politics, like domestic politics, is the 'art of the possible'. The ability to reach a consensus on action in Libya, in the face of potential crimes against humanity, is not illegitimate simply because a similar consensus cannot be reached in other circumstances.'
Still, the vagueness surrounding the administration's strategy in Libya is likely to continue fuelling suspicion that it acted against Col Gaddafi, and not his Yemeni or Bahraini counterparts, because of oil and self-interests in the region.
Bahrain and Yemen have been hugely cooperative on the military front, and in the fight against Al-Qaeda.
Bahrain hosts the US Fifth Fleet, which patrols the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the east coast of Africa. It also keeps an eye on key oil shipping lanes in the region and Iran.
Yemen hosts no known American military assets, but Mr Saleh has been permitting US forces to conduct secret operations and unmanned aerial drone missile attacks against suspected terrorists in the country.
There have been growing fears in recent years that Yemen could be the launch pad for a new terror attack against the US. If the Yemeni government collapses as a result of internal unrest and US pressure, terror splinter groups like Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula could gain an even stronger foothold in an already unstable country.
Libya, however, holds no comparable strategic interests for the US, though its 41 billion barrels of oil reserves give rise to conspiracy theories over American intentions. Analysts have generally dismissed talk that Washington is out to control Libyan oil, pointing to the complete lack of an alternative government that would be needed to bring the oil to market, even if the Gaddafi regime should collapse right away.
To the extent that oil is an issue in its decision- making process, the Obama administration is more likely to be concerned with global oil prices. By taking action to ensure a swifter end to the turmoil in Libya, Washington hopes that oil prices will not keep rising for weeks and months on end - a development that could derail the fragile economic recovery in the US.
Mr Max Boot, a Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow, noted: 'Aside from the humanitarian issues and the cost of maintaining the no-fly zone, there is also the cost to the world economy. We need to do what we can to end this crisis.'
By Chua Chin Hon
From the Straits Times
chinhon@sph.com.sg
