Perhaps I misunderstood the context of your post, I took "Not persuing regime change" to mean that the end result of their actions was something other than Qadaffi leaving power? You say they want to find him a resort that's suitable to his liking for him to disappear in for his troubles? I'm sure that will go over real well with whatever regime takes over next.

I'm anxiously awaiting the report from the NYT investigating who manufactures Tomohawk Missles and any ties they have to the Obama administration.

Yeah, misunderstanding of terms. "Regime change" in this context is specifically referring to Iraq, ie dropping 6 figures of troops into a country, removing the leader and owning the result until the next government is installed.

Its clear that getting rid of Gadaffi is the goal. We just prefer not having to do it personally.

You can't call that anything but regime change. In Iraq, the offer for Saddam to retire elsewhere was on the table until the last minute -- the policy was regime change.

1. Option 1 - safe haven for Gaddafi. This needs Gaddfi to voluntarily leave Libya. As the head of a very powerful tribe, it is highly unlikely that his closest associates and family will turn against him - blood ties are very strong, so his dominance of at least a portion of Libya is not threatened at the moment. Attractive as this option would be, it is enormously unlikely.

2. Option 2 - Splitting the country and using UN Peacekeepers: I think some confusion here. Peace keeping operations involve UN forces after a negotiated peace. Peace enforcement operations are very different. It would be pretty impossible to get a UN mandate under Chapter 7 of the charter to initiate a peace enforcement operation which would require "blue hats" to invade and conduct extensive combat operations. So any Peace Enforcement would need to be done under the NATO umbrella, without the legal support of the UN. China would certainly veto such a resolution in principle. So option 2 is only valid if the various sides fight to a standoff and negotiate a peace.

3. Option 3 - New resolution increasing military options, arming rebels etc. I think nobody is seeking a new resolution of this kind. Already politicians are saying that increased military options, arming rebels etc would be legal under the existing resolution. In other words, they know they won't get a stronger resolution and are giving themselves options for "mission creep". To me this just indicates options for prolonging and intensifying a civil war that should have been over by now.

4. The unsaid Option 4 - Invasion a la Iraq - but we all agree this is a no goer.

So we are left with an endstate which pretty much ensures that Gaddfi remains in control of at least a major portion of Libya. And bides his time until the international community gets bored until he can "reunite" his country.

The technical military term for these operation is "cluster****".

Option two with Gadaffi coming to the table will become more viable when his supporters keep seeing everyone around them facing the wrong end of a NATO airstrike. Similarly option one will open up for much the same circumstances if those around him see him as more of a liability than their loyalty is worth.

The problem with the operation, as i see it, is no one is entirely sure what the end game will be. But at the same time i dont think we could have stood by and done nothing and let another "Rwanda" happen. To top it all this is set in the backdrop of being less than a decade after the cluster**** of Iraq which draws (mostly flawed) comparisons.

lol @ Rwanda.

I'm uncomfortable enough with the Srebrenica comparisons I've seen floating around, but Rwanda is ridiculous (even if you simply meant it as shorthand for any massacre we simply watched happen, which is really should not be used as).

The likely outcome of inaction would have been bad enough without delving into the realm of distasteful hyperbole imo.

That is what i meant.

Do not be deceived by western notions of loyalty - they are completely different in the Arab culture. For example; a father asks his two sons to do something impossible. The first son says, " Father, I want to do what you ask, but I am not capable of it, please ask me to do something else." The second son says "Yes, father," and does nothing. Who is the better son? In this culture it is the second son. Gaddafi is 100% secure in his tribe because anyone who disobeyed him would be considered unfit to lead by the others in the tribe.

And re above, I was there for Srebrenica. The muslims abused their safe haven status daily for over a year. They would fire a few rounds at the surrounding Serb forces, who would retaliate with a hundred rounds of artillery. The press ignored the initial provocation and only reported the Serb response. Eventually the Serbs got pissed off with the whole situation and went in and slaughtered everyone.

That's what happens when you **** around in these civil wars. The law of unintended consequences - systems thinking - call it what you will, but small interventions can have large consequences opposite to those you intend.

A few posts above, someone referred to a French journalist report that Gaddafi was moving dead bodies to allied bombing locations to simulate dead civilian casualties. 2 points. On the BBC website a BBC journalist in Tripoli was asked what he knew about this rumour. His response was that it was "bollocks", because the journo's have been trying to get access to civilian casualties and hospitals for days, but have been prevented from doing so by the Govt.

Secondly, I've seen it in Iraq and Bosnia and Kosovo. The press create their own narrative, and arrange (create) stories to fit this narrative regardless of the facts. This is often unconsciously done. Kate Adie was a great journalist, but I've briefed her on a massacre of Croats by Muslims, and then watched as she briefed exactly the opposite - the correction though broadcast, didn't make it to the other news sources which took up the story. The executions of suspected Government sympathisers in Benghazi won't make it to the news, but those of rebels sympathisers in Tripoli will.

And my final point here is so subtle it will be missed by everyone. If the government forces were moving bodies to bombing locations to simulate civilian casualties, it wouldn't matter. They would still be dead people - people killed in the conflict - the tragedy would be no worse. The distinction in the media between legitimate military casualties and innocent civilian casualties is a sophistic and in my mind evil corruption of morality. They are dead people, and our humanitarian aim should be to reduce the numbers of dead people and grieving children and parents. Regardless of what side they are on.

"Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said that Libya's situation cannot be solved by military action alone.
Speaking after an international coalition pledged to continue military action against Gaddafi and agreed to set up a contact group to coordinate political efforts, Rasmussen urged all parties to seek a political solution as soon as possible. He said:
But I do hope that we'll see a political solution to the problems in Libya as soon as possible. Clearly there's no military solution, solely, to the problems in Libya."

This is diplomaticspeak for - the miltary action is pointless and will achieve nothing, ffs find another policy!

I agree. if the amount of people wanting to do killing is less then the people they want to kill we should stop them, but if the amount of people who want to kill others is MORE than the amount of people they want to kill then we should let them. We want to minimize the deaths after all.

xPeru, what do you do? If you don't mind telling, of course.

As I said previously: I think the optimum solution was to do nothing But good question, and fun to answer ...

Now, it depends who I'm representing:

Obama: (or rather the USA): Now I'm in it, I want to win it. I'd explore two options; first doing a deal with Saif al Islam, create a covertly US backed pro democracy unity government. You can find Saif quoted as seeing the establishment of democracy in Libya as his most important priority - so if you want to back the pro-democracy side, Gaddafi's son is probably the best bet. He's certainly the candidate most likely to produce a USA friendly govt. Second option is to find a pro-US element among the rebels and finance/arm them to first establish their primacy amongst the various rebel factions, and then support them militarily, through airstrikes and intelligence, in an assault on Tripoli. US special forces could support such an assault.

Cameron/EU: Support whatever the USA does and take no unilateral/independent action.

Rebels: Suck up to the USA and try to be the team that gets the support in outlined above

Gaddafi: Hire someone like me to get the English right on PR statements
Then, doing it the old fashioned way, without heavy armor, seize a rebel held town (not city). Embed the international press with government forces, and after the inevitable bloody fighting, disarm the captured rebels and let them go free as an act of conciliation. Promise that the same treatment will be the fate of any future rebels caught. No rapes, massacres or tortures. Then sponsor a UN resolution condemning the US for not attacking rebels who are threatening the civilian population. Expose the double standard of only bombing forces attacking civilians in rebel controlled areas as a mechanism of upholding the UN resolution. Collect as much evidence of rebel atrocities as possible and let the press report freely on all aspects of the conflict. I'd then hand over power to Saif al Islam to establish a unity government of reconciliation and retire to my amazonian bodyguards' tender ministrations.

He tried the American Right. Al Qaida on drugs = War on Terror + Drug War. All he had to say was that Al Qaida were training the elite secular athiest brigades to preform battle abortions while shooting AKs and then zoom on Gingrich do his "O" face.

The farcical thing is that what Gaddafi said will probably turn out to be true

Oops, I meant, what type of work do you do?

Thanks though.

.

Oh, thanks. Totally missed that.

er, and now I'm a poker player

I said cut and run just after this started before lot of political damage is done would be Obama's best option but he's in now for sure. It's too late to cut and run. I remember Phil and Brons in particular scoffing at that notion. Wonder what they think now because from my vantage point, Phil at least, is advocating an escalation of the military action beyond it's "humanitarian" objective.

Covert actions involving an escalation of the conflict including using more US military resources. This option is going to take some time to unfold no doubt. Also isn't there an issue with arming the rebels such that they also require military training in using those arms and deploying?

With the option of backing away from things that are political trouble for them. I don't think this is what Obama envisioned when he made his speech the other day. But who knows, the Obama administration has become more Orwellian as time goes on in my view.

I'm fairly certain the rebels have expectations in that they believe that promises were made to them. Failure to deliver on those perceived promises could have some very negative consequences.

I'm fairly certain that he's going to follow pretty much what you describe above.

Im not particularly advocating anything. But im not going to be really upset if securing the Libyan people means putting boots on the ground with the proviso that it must be an international force and it must be well planned. The airstrikes with no end goal is fine imo, but if it comes to putting troops in the country we really need an end game solution.

Also fwiw cutting and running is still dumb. America can keep popping Tomahawks and control the air with near zero risk of losing lives and this is what Obama should do going forward. He has always talked about providing a supporting role for the other nations and this should be all he offers and in doing so he can talk his way through to the other side for a long time at home. He simply cant be part of a ground assault, but it is a terrible President who simply pulls out of an operation like this with the role they are currently taking.

Having another Muslim country destabilised and then left to fend for themselves is absolutely terrible when it comes to international relations.

I'm not entirely sure what I said about cut and run. But I'm pretty sure that I said that the US sitting back providing intelligence and shooting tomahawks is an option. I'm not sure if that counts as cut and run but I don't see how that could be a problem from Obama. No one complained when the US bombed people in Yemen.

"You can find Saif quoted as seeing the establishment of democracy in Libya as his most important priority - so if you want to back the pro-democracy side, Gaddafi's son is probably the best bet."

This is Level 0 thinking...
Oblivious even to the concept of propaganda...
Applied to guys who operate on Level 3 or 4.

Or it's a weak attempt to promote Saif et al.

And if people are gonna float succession scenarios...
Please give one example where a 60ish Islamic/African dictator...
Who voluntarily handed over power to a son.

Qadaffi has what he wants... a stalemate...
He knows NATO will lose interest...
And he's had no need to get nasty = hostages, terror, etc.

I was saying what I would do in their position, not what I thought would happen.

The reason I provocatively made the statement about Saif al Islam is not that I think he is a democrat per se, but because I believe that of all the potential successors to Gaddafi, he is the one most likely to manage a regime which will act the least against the interests of freedom and liberal democracy.

Look at the players:

Gaddafi?
Abdul Fattah Younis Chief of Staff of the rebels in Benghazi - former interior minister for Gaddafi and Head of Libyan Special Forces.(Might just have killed a few "civilians" in his day
Mahmoud Jibril, quasi "Prime Minister" Former economic adviser to Gaddafi - might just have socked away a little bit of the people's oil wealth.
Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, chairman of the National Council - formerly Gaddafi's Justice Minister. Surely it can't be possible that he has had people tortured and executed?

Or there is an array of Islamic pro al Quaeda tribal leaders who may make a bid for power.

At least Saif has spent enough time in the developed world to understand what we want of him. And his public pronouncements mean that there is at least an opportunity to manage his leadership in the direction we would like. You can't say that of any of the other possible candidates, including his two brothers.

Nonetheless, I do agree that no matter whether his succession is desirable or not, it is highly unlikely and it looks like we will see Gaddafi in power for many years to come.