The government is rightly proud of the Libya intervention. Not only did it save
thousands of lives in Benghazi but it was conducted in way that learnt the lessons of the past. The Foreign Secretary took pains to get a UN resolution, making the mission legal, and kept the
shape-shifting Arab League committed throughout.
But unless the government is now willing to unlearn the lessons of the past, and act both more unilaterally and even illegally, its multilateral, UN-sanctioned action may have been for nothing. For Misrata is now getting the punishment that had been planned for Benghazi. The town is being destroyed in a seige that looks like the shelling of Sarajevo. NATO’s air campaign, and especially the recent attacks on Colonel Gaddafi’s communications systems, have evened the odds a little but it is still likely the town will fall, barbarism will ensue and loyalist forces will then push on to Benghazi to exact vengeance.
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