The Daily Star Editorial

The sight of an Air France jet entering Tripoli airport Thursday, on board the leaders of two of Europe’s most prosperous nations, made good advertising for all involved.
The footage of French President Nicholas Sarkozy and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron arriving in the Libyan capital to crowds of adoring Libyans will make for good PR in the administrations of Downing Street and the Champs Elysees. The National Transitional Council receiving the blessing of the pair will also boost the organization both nationally and internationally.

The prime minister was right to temper celebrations. Even as the Europeans basked in the glory of a successful NATO-led military operation to rid Libya of its long-term tyrant, Cameron reminded assembled crowds that Colonel Moammar Gadhafi remains at large. By pledging additional military support to the NTC, Britain and France appear to be making sure that the prolonged and unnecessarily bloody penultimate acts of Gadhafi’s existence will shortly come to an end.

While Sarkozy and Cameron – as well as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was due to arrive in Libya in the next few hours – can offer their backing to the NTC, the organization itself faces the daunting task of installing democracy, to mention nothing of functioning infrastructure, in a country so long ravaged by Gadhafi’s avarice and fecklessness.

Thursday’s events may have been international in flavor, but the graft work to be undertaken must remain ostensibly Libyan. It is a daunting task, faced as the NTC is by a country devoid of civil society or public amenities, and splintered by competing tribal and sectarian interest.

The threat of fresh unrest cannot be ruled out. When dictators fall, the path to meritocracy is often fraught, such as the wake of sectarian killings that continue to haunt post-Saddam Iraq.
Security, still flaky as evidenced by this week’s attack by Gadhafi loyalists on a rebel-held oil refinery, is paramount. No matter how lofty the ideals of Libya’s new leaders, no progression and no improvement in civilian life and freedom can occur without first establishing robust rule of law.

Free and fair elections must be allowed to take place on Libya’s terms, but the already offered United Nations help should at least be considered by the new administration. There is no shame in admitting the country lacks the institutional and operational capability to immediately function ideally as a civilized state. If the NTC needed external help in war, it stands to reason it would benefit from a little guidance during peacetime.

The new leaders of Libya, whoever they turn out to be, owe it to all Libyans to stay true to the principles the fighting of oppression was predicated on. Freedom, as the rebel fighters learned in the bloodiest possible way, comes at a price. It also comes with responsibility.