We woke up on Friday to find ourselves about to go to war.During the day about sixty MPs managed to find their way to Westminster to hear the Prime Minister tell us this was going to happen but there would be an overnight delay until the leaders of the various "coalition" countries could get together in Paris to agree a modus operandi. Inevitably the outraged Gadaffi used the cover of darkness to swiftly move his troops up the road to Benghazi. How inconsiderate of him. Hasn't he heard of work/life balance , unsocial hours and the need for eight hours sleep for EU leaders in particular? The action began immediately after that Paris meeting. Amongst other things, UK submarines fired off some of their stock of Tomahawk cruise missiles at Libyan targets. When the store was last replenished, an additional 30 cost $100 million, so each sent on its way cost the Treasury the equivalent a good few local libraries, rural buses etc in the current round of austerity. Whether all this was a good idea or not and whether Parliament actually agrees will be democratically debated( for it is democracy, not governments deciding on their own what's good for their citizens for which we are fighting)on Monday.Strange. Hasn't the horse already bolted? Will we take our missiles back if "The Noes have it"?
In days gone by the outbreak of wars could be seen a long way off. Certainly years and sometimes decades in advance. The build up of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s gave plenty of warning as to what might become inevitable.
Now is different. Only a couple of months ago the Libyan Government was our friend and one which we assiduously courted.There were big deals to be had and by and large we did well. Only a month ago, David Cameron led the British mission to the Gulf arms fair and toured some of the region's countries. They and their governments were seen as friends and certainly people to do business with. Apart from that, they were,- and still are,- all recognised as legitimate governments.
What's changed? If there had been no uprisings, demonstrations, occupations etc, -all different,- around the Middle East then nothing would have altered and we would have continued to deal with all the governments involved. Suddenly though there were demonstrations. Some, as in Egypt, succeeded in their aims of achieving constitutional and even regime change. Some did not. Again, all the situations were different as were the ways in which the protests and their leaders were dealt with.
In most of these disputes we have sensibly stood well clear other than almost certainly giving advice on possible peaceful resolutions. In Libya however we have not. There the real fear of genocide and the wholesale slaughter of those who have not shown unswerving loyalty to the regime has persuaded us differently even though the end game is not clear .Bosnia and Rwanda have made us very nervous about being seen to stand aside while such things happened.
Our propensity for being drawn into other people's conflicts and to suddenly find ourselves involved in wars most people really don't want is though worrying. The lack of prior public debate raises questions about our own less than perfect democracy in action,- a democracy which we are telling the world they should be adopting. It also raises questions about other nations' possible rights to intervene in our internal affairs. What if next Saturday's anti-cuts demonstration in London got ugly, there were clamours for regime change at Number 10 and the leaders were bundled into police vans and detained awaiting trial. Using our own precedent, could Libya send in its troops to ensure what they saw as fair play?
On this occasion we can justify our action and will probably get away with it since a real massacre was on the cards if Gaddafi's troops had run amok in opposition areas. On others though we stand on the edge of a serious precipice and at high risk of over involvement. Encouraging regimes to change though contact, trade, and the establishment of mutual self interest,which is what we had been doing in Libya with some success,- diplomacy in other words,- may take a long time but its effects are likely to be more robust and longer lasting as well as a lot less expensive for an already broke economy. Libya had though become an emergency, so suspension of normal logic and judgment is understandable.
