The burning of the twenty-five years old Tunisian Tariq al tayyb Muhammad Bu'azizi, reduced to human torch in protest against the continuing harassment of the Tunisian police, triggered, December 17, 2010, an upheaval in the Arab-Mediterranean world that is not easy now to understand where will end.
Meanwhile, it is easy to agree on one fact: it is not the same old insurgency aimed at replacing one faction to another, the hegemony of a structure of government to another government ready to replace the old. This is probably the explicit manifestation of people who no longer intend to submit to oppressive and corrupt regimes, young people, so far subdued by monarchs who have looted the resources of their territory to get rich, with the complicity of all of the former West colonial powers, that geopolitical stability in the area have based their strategies, buttressing the power of characters unpresentable and ignoring the poor conditions of oppressed people.
Of course, this kind of riots if they have seen many in every latitude, it was therefore understandable that Western diplomats were waiting to sneak around is normal and usual traffic could be restored without significant disruption to invest the Middle Eastern landscape. It is therefore easy to imagine their displacement when the young people of Tahrir Square demanded the heads of their despots in the name of freedom only, without raising squares with one voice against those countries traditionally regarded as the collective enemy, the Americans and Israelis in head.
Hence, in the case of Libya, the pathetic range from the initial accession to the explicit demands of North African youth in revolt, and then the caution in supporting the fight, so it took exactly three months since the UN Security Council takes a Decision on March 16 without unanimity, the way to the no-fly zone, an initiative to stem the minimum fierce, bloody repression of its people against Gaddafi. An initiative run out of time, and in which confusion of ideas is palpable.
Late because of Gaddafi aviation had already prevailed on the rebels in retreat and the mercenary and government troops had already infiltrated the city of Cyrenaica, where the rebels still held out, making it impossible for any intervention from the air; confused because it gave a clear mandate or with regard to driving strategic and tactical operation, or on the limits and the rules of military action.
In the confused and belated intervention of the UN Security Council is evident throughout the strategic and military decline of the Western powers. America, more and more careless ones mired in military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq, frustrated with a government that, in the name of Obama, has obtained a consent to a plebiscite characterized by impaired social regeneration soon colossal vested interests that have been made across against health care reform, the first and, then, against all measures aimed at curbing excessive power of business and financial lobby. But most dazed for a U-turn in purpose to convert the logic array Bush warmonger, so that, under the Obama administration, have increased the military initiatives in Afghanistan, has consolidated the failed status quo in Iraq, he is guilty postponement of the promised dismantling of the outrageous Guantanamo prison, while the public is growing impatience at the continuing hemorrhage of lives in the conflict whose outcome, noticeably failed on the ground, are dangerously uncertain.
The UN resolution ended insane, then, to favor the pathetic neo-colonialist instances of Sarkozy's France eager to regain prestige in North Africa, especially after the disastrous retreat from Algeria.
But to the UN resolution, there is much more: there is the obvious short-sightedness towards a series of events that have certainly inflamed the Mediterranean Africa, but the consequences of which they are intended, in the medium term, to destabilize the existing arrangements and to draw Middle Eastern geopolitical landscape a new and certainly very problematic for the entire West.
As I write, I am not able to predict the outcome of the Libyan military. At the moment it seems they begin to miss the sensitive targets to be hit from the air: despite the blustering of Colonel Gaddafi, his military seems very limited, and its resources seem to be oriented to foster a kind of civil war, fighting street by street cities still in the hands of insurgents, in which, for obvious reasons, it is conceivable need for the support of aviation and even less of the missiles.
The usual sordid timing
This situation has already caused cracks on the front of the interventionists and those who, without dirtying their hands, approved the resolution of the Security Council. Between the warring parties is clear the conflict between France and Britain were thrown headlong in the adventure Libya, Italy, which is clearly nostalgic for the good times of the kiss Gaddafi hands, but with his usual, timing is sordid race to side with the predictable winners of the game, not without experiencing the frustration of being relegated to providing service, without any role of prestige. He called and got the intervention of NATO, even if the Americans, who constitute the dominant part, would like to unmark a face that in perspective, evokes the ghosts of Desert storm: they launched their missiles to flex their muscles but that is enough. They are not, however, the only ones who have shown reluctance on Intervention of NATO. Germany and Turkey explicitly stated initially willing to want to leave the burden of completing a transaction to which they are not aggregated, while France has allegedly left at the end, to give the NATO technical tasks only, leaving to a Foreign Ministers committee of the warring countries the responsibility of the politico-strategic conflict. Although this intricate matter seems resolved at the time, it is certain that it does not augur well on the state of relations between allies, in fact, illuminates the state of confusion and conflict of interest between the custodians of democracy dictators realize that only when they are in play their interests (which are, moreover, divergent).
But on the face of non-combatants are equipped with the reserves, or even the ill-feeling. African countries have expressed their indignation at the brutality of the assault. Russia and China swell the ranks of doubters. The Arab League now shows to be annoyed from the evolution of events and has good reason: many of its countries have in the house a challenge to their leadership in the wake of the events that mounts also North Africa and, not unreasonably, they fear that what takes place in Libya may affect them directly tomorrow.
The fact is that the entire Arab world is in motion and Saudi Arabia is the heart of an upheaval that causes great concern to the West.
The Saudi monarchy has long been in crisis, not for the problems of succession, much to the conditions of the population who can not stand to remain on the margins of a society based on privilege and the excessive wealth of a few. The Saudi are invisible to the vast majority of the population in the capital Riyadh and you can hear the heavy breathing of popular protest. In recent weeks, the Saudi army, the indifference of countries standard-bearers of democracy, has invaded the Berhein in revolt, based, inter alia, a major American military base. Please note that the countries bordering the Arabian Sea and the Caspian Sea transits 40% of the energy resources of the planet. But it is not the problem. In the geopolitical strategy of the West, Saudi Arabia, along with Turkey, was considered a bulwark against Iran. Turkey now also tends to disengage from the block of the Western powers to approach Iran's Amadi-Nejad: The turning point occurred after the last brutal Israeli intervention in the Gaza Strip (lead time) which, among other things seems to have led to the welding relationship between Al Fath and Hamas.
If you add to this picture the uprights popular objections to the Assad regime in Syria and the instability of the situation in Lebanon, a glance at the map to see how it is rapidly changing the geopolitics of the Middle East and Mediterranean (where Morocco and Algeria are also sharply in fibrillation).
You will also notice that the risky circle tightens around Israel, a circle made up of countries like Iran, who are unwilling to make concessions to the government of Metanyahu. That adds to the climate of hostility that involves the entire West, which shows his inability to understand the current climate on its assets and its stale liturgies. Show to be catatonic Europe, whose voice was heard only to highlight the divisions that paralyze policy and now atavistic inability to identify changes occurring in the world and that, willy-nilly involve her. A general crisis, in short, that makes the Western democracies, on both sides of the Atlantic, deaf and blind.
The logic of domination
If not, would not have addressed the crisis in the Libyan reckless manner that is visible to everyone.
Rather than disrupt the area Tripoline and Cyrene with a disproportionate amount of bombs and missiles, of course, with their side effects, victims have added to the victims, the UN would have been able to muster the African Union and Arab League rapidly generate a positive interposed to separate the militias and mercenaries of Gaddafi by young people in revolt.
It would have been an intelligent and relatively painless to resolve the conflict within the countries for their ethnic, cultural and politico-religious affinities are closer to contending. And then would not have rekindled distrust of the Arab world towards the West which shows clearly does not want to desist from imposing by force its very often questionable reasons.
Now we are stuck in a cul de sac from which it will be difficult to escape. The alternative, crippling, is, or resolve to defeat the resistance of the Libyan colonel with a ground force that at the time, is contrary to the UN mandate and is reluctant to see the America that the African Union, as well as League Arabic, Turkish and European countries, or watch helplessly to a civil war of position, not long as it can be assumed, that could eventually ratify the separation between Tripoli and the Pirenaica.
As I write is in progress the London conference, attended by a total of 40 countries, including the components of the Arab League but excluding the African Union, which gave on the eve of the work packages and Russia, according to which military operations in Libya part of the willing went far beyond the mandate of the UN Security Council. This conference was preceded by a video-first meeting between Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy and, surprisingly, Merkel (back from a crushing electoral defeat), which had held so far away from the war Germany, then from a speech to the nation of Barak Obama, who, justifying his initial intervention with humanitarian reasons and to help defeat a bloodthirsty dictator who Gaddafi (Bush's echoes against Saddam Hussein?) emphasized that Libya is far from the interests of the American people and that America can not continue to play the role of policeman of the world: an explicit disengagement, in fact.
To allow the closure of the next issue of the Magazine, we are not able to learn and evaluate the results of the London Conference, which should address the future of the Libyan state.
I will confine myself, therefore to a few final thoughts: the first appearance of a fanciful discussion on the future structure of a country before they were headed to the problem of eliminating Gaddafi, a problem that, in general confusion and stalemate in the military situation the territory, does not seem easy to solve. The second consideration is that, once again, the logic of domination of the hegemonic power tent, in fact, to expropriate the Libyan people's right to self-determination.
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41 n. 362
Antonio Cardella
