Dr. Richard Haass Fears Libya Could Turn Into Somalia

Following a few tense moments of “Where the hell is he?” Dr. Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations, finally surfaced. Despite the late start, Haass managed to make a number of salient points on the dramatic situation unfolding in Libya, where people are demanding longtime President Muammar Gaddafi step down and he is refusing—often violently—to do so.
 
As for who would takeover if Gaddafi ever vacates his post, Haass indicated that there is no obvious answer. “What he did when he was in power—he spent his entire time making sure there was no competition,” Haass said. “So if he goes, the most likely scenario is things are chaotic, to put it bluntly.”
 
The “opposition” in Libya is more like “oppositions,” Haass noted, and he fears the messiness in Libya resembles that in Somalia. “Tribal leaders, clannish leaders, geographic units, and so forth,” he said.  “It’s not like there’s an opposition front, or anything so organized.”
 
President Obama was predictably cautious at the outset of events in Libya, not wanting to jeopardize anything for the hundreds of Americans in the country. Since their safe evacuation, the U.S. government has been “rhetorically tough” with Libya, in Haass’s view, signing on to sanctions that are more symbolic in nature than anything else.
 
“You’ll freeze accounts, you’ll say that people could be vulnerable to war crimes,” he said. “But at the end of the day, this is going to play out. We’re not going to land 50,000 marines in Tripoli in order to try to calm the situation.”
 
For all intents and purposes, the United States has its hands tied. “We can say the kind of principles we want to see embraced, we can say, ‘If you’re willing to do certain things, you will have our support diplomatically, economically,’” Haass said. Unfortunately, however, “We don’t control these situations. At best, we have limited influence, whether you’re talking about Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, or Libya.”
 
Haass acknowledged that supporting democracies in the region can be a dangerous path to a government that would be slightly more anti-American and anti-Israel than dictators like Gaddafi and Mubarak in Egypt have been. The best result, he said, would be “a kind of reformist, third alternative between the autocrats and the radical Islamists.”
 
Realizing the gravity of his statement, Haass added, soberly, “It’s easier said than done.”
 
-Julie Kanfer