Amid all the media hoopla about a new way of war supposedly being born in Libya, it is sobering to take note of some new revelations which suggest there is precious little new about what has just happened.

In the first place, Qatar has now admitted that hundreds of its Special Forces were on the ground in Libya helping the rebels to train their forces and communicate with NATO. This was in addition to the previously disclosed presence of British and French Special Forces. In other words, just as in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, it took an outside contingent of troops to galvanize a scattered opposition and transform it into a militarily effective force.

Having been midwived by outside military intervention, the new Libyan government is not ready to go it alone, either. Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, chairman of the Transitional National Council, has asked NATO to continue its mission through at least the end of the year by providing military training and continuing air support for the rebel forces. This is especially important because the rebel leadership so far has had no luck in amalgamating various rebel militias into a single military force. Unless a strong national army can be created and the militias disarmed, Libya stands at great risk of renewed fighting. Unfortunately, that is precisely the risk we are running because NATO appears set to end its mission next week.

That will not, of course, stop individual NATO states or non-NATO states for that matter from providing help to the Libyans. But there is much to be said for NATO taking the lead role rather than deferring to, say, Qatar, an opportunistic state that hosts a U.S. military presence while also sponsoring al Jazeera, cultivating friendly ties with Iran, and providing a platform for Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian cleric who is one of the most popular jihadist demagogues in the entire Middle East.

The U.S., Britain, France and Italy need to stay closely involved in Libyan developments to help ensure that the revolution, so far successful, does not go off the rails. But for that to happen, President Obama, Prime Minister Cameron, and President Sarkozy will have to take a break from all the victory laps they have been taking since the fall of Tripoli and the death of Qaddafi. Much hard work remains ahead if the promise of the Libyan revolution is to be realized.

 

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