Is Libya already lost?

by Virginia Tilley for Mondoweiss
Libya may already be lost. “Lost”, that is, for people-power democratisation. The Arab freedom wave has seemed an irresistible force, smashing down old post-colonial crony dictatorships in four Arab states and counting. But it has run smack into world oil politics in Libya and crashed to a stop. The rebel’s ill-organised ground battle faces a reversal almost too painful to watch. Yet more painful is that, in western rhetoric about what to do next, the rebel movement itself is now largely marginal even to debate about how to “protect” it. The West itself inflicted mortal blows on that movement and, although still holding on, its momentum now appears irreparable, its eulogy ringing in Western debates about imposing a no-fly zone.
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