Britain, France and Lebanon’s decision to table a UN Security Council resolution proposing a no fly zone and a bar on flights in and out of Gaddafi’s Libya is an honourable effort to push the international community to move before the window for action closes entirely.
Yet as the French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe acknowledged yesterday,
“If we had used military force last week to neutralize some airstrips and the several dozen planes that they have, perhaps the reversal taking place to the detriment of the opposition wouldn’t have happened,” Juppe told Europe-1 radio. “But that’s the past.” “What is happening today shows us that we may have let slip by a chance,” he added.
The sad truth is that multilateral institutions have again failed, that Europe has been unable to reach a common proactive position and, most worryingly, the United State appears to have lost interest in its role as global policeman.
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