From Chinese Press

What's behind the Libya intervention?

By Wang Hanlu (peopledaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2011-04-01 10:16

Many in China and throughout the world are questioning the motives of U.N. coalition forces as they continue their military action in Libya under the banner of humanitarian intervention and with the blessing of a U.N. Resolution despite mounting civilian casualties and the great risk of the nation sinking into civil war.

As a matter of fact, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, Libya's leader, has been offering goodwill gestures to Western countries in the past decade. Qaddafi announced Libya voluntarily gave up the development of weapons of mass destruction in 2003. Libya accepted its responsibilities for the Lockerbie bombing and paid 2.7 billion U.S. dollars to compensate those victims' families.

The Libyan domestic oil industry absorbed a large amount of capital from Western countries, and oil companies in France, Italy and Spain have an important market share in Libya. In addition, Qaddafi voiced his opposition with al-Qaeda to cooperate with Western countries in anti-terrorism.

After all this, Qaddafi still cannot be accepted by Western countries and has become the target of military attacks this time. Why?

From Qaddafi's personal perspective, shifts in foreign policy are among the most important reasons that caused him to be targeted. In the early stages of the Qaddafi regime, he used violent methods to fight against Western countries and made many enemies. Although he tried to get close to them, it seems like they do not buy it. Even worse, Qaddafi had already been labeled as a textbook example of repression against civilians, so he was rebuffed with accusations and assault.

On a strategic level, Qaddafi's choice of words in his political rhetoric has also displeased Western countries, such as when he said he opposes the "New Crusade." Although Qaddafi was not necessarily aiming those words at Western countries, analysts believe that these political words actually have great power to encourage political mobilization and might even foster anti-Western sentiment.

Apart from above reasons, the thing that Western countries can least accept about Qaddafi is the political road on which he has been stepping. For years, Qaddafi has been advocating unifying country and regions, building powerful army and political organizations, oil nationalization, mobilizing middle and lower class public, carrying on land reforms and fighting against Western intervention. Although these goals are hard to realize, they are clearly in the direction of a revival of the Arab world.

The middle of the last century was the greatest period for the Arab world both in terms of international reputation and global influence. But the good times did not last long. The international position of the Arab world and the national security of Arab nations have been challenged often since the middle 1970s.

In recent years, the United States launched two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Israel also launched large-scale military attacks over Lebanon and Palestine. However, the Arab world could do nothing about that.

For Western countries, the status quo or even a new Arab world changed due to Western will is the best thing. But once a united Arab world is formed, the Western interests in this piece of land, with its large population and rich resources, will be affected badly.

The reason Libya is being "punished" by the Western coalition is mainly because the country has a big affect on Western interests. However, with the development of war and the overall global situation, the political goals of the intervention will be vaguer and vaguer.