By James Badcock

That there has been no triumphalism among the Western backers of the new masters of Libya is understandable. There is still an enormously long way to go before anyone can be satisfied that a decent regime has replaced the foul tyranny of Moammar Gadhafi.

However, there are also voices whose lament is meant to nullify the very desire to bring about change. These voices have been sniping from the sidelines as the messy nature of building a modern democracy from the wreckage of a 4-decade-old dictatorship and a civil war reveals itself in shockingly stark terms.
Would it then have been better to stay out of the Libyan rebellion? After all, it was not “our” war, even if European and American support for a North African status quo made the West at least partially complicit as troops loyal to Gadhafi bore down on Benghazi.

Yet what is the West’s role to be? The lessons of the foreign interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq are plain to see. In pulling American troops out of those countries, President Barack Obama is effectively admitting that ground forces are not the answer to the conundrum of how to help fledgling democracies build a new state and functioning society. In both countries, military occupation by Western troops fed an insurgency movement that poisoned the postwar environment. The prevalence of violence, in turn, led to the establishment of the worst kind of corrupt political culture.

Only the most hawkish interventionists would today disagree with these withdrawals. So why is it that so many liberal observers insist on criticizing French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron for their decision to back the Libyan rebels? They have evoked, in defense of their position, the West’s lack of control over the new authorities, and their abuses. The decision to intervene was morally brave, with perhaps expiatory overtones, considering Europe’s track record of cozying up to Arab dictators, some of whom are still in power. For those in the West to condemn intervention by wringing their hands over the absence of a perfectly level moral playing field in foreign policy (Libya yes, Syria no) helps no one; these are not aesthetical questions, but practical ones.

The situation in Libya, with willing rebels fighting on the ground, enabled a broad NATO consensus over providing air strikes without putting troops into the conflict. This allowed the rebels to “own” their eventual victory, and now gives Libyans the chance to start afresh and attempt to forge a united nation on their own terms.

If there have been massacres and atrocities on the rebel side, it is ridiculous to blame the West by extension for having backed the oppressed in a civil war. Benghazi was going to see a massacre; Gadhafi’s rule was an aberration. Trying to control events by force in postwar Libya does not work in the modern-day environment where insurgencies are cheap and simple to organize. Sponsoring a local leader would strip that new government of credibility.

Should non-governmental organizations and international prosecutors be allowed to investigate? Certainly. Without soldiers in Libya, Tripoli’s Western backers must use diplomatic and moral influence to try to guide the new regime, and employ this leverage firmly. The onus is on the National Transitional Council to play by international rules if it wants to join the ranks of democratic states.

Of course, the new rulers of Libya will also have oil, with which they may try to grease the diplomatic system and evade, when it suits their interests, the spotlight of civil society. Non-governmental organizations and media must do their bit to ensure that Western leaders this time demand higher standards in exchange for their support and not turn a blind eye to repression, as they did before.

Elsewhere, Tunisia’s new leaders, Islamists or not, must also be respected. It is disturbing to see how Sarkozy’s government failed to greet the electoral victory of Al-Nahda with even feigned enthusiasm, instead congratulating Tunisian political forces in general on a successfully organized ballot. It is a reminder that when the unrest began, the former French foreign minister, Michele Alliot-Marie, put her country’s security forces at the disposition of Tunisia’s President Zine al-Abidine ben Ali. Her gesture was presumably based on the assumption that an ally’s regime was experiencing a security problem.

Tunisia’s democratic process can be monitored from the outside as the country proceeds to lay down the rules of the game under a new Constitution. The preferences of Tunisians, however, need not be those of Westerners. The West backed Ben Ali right to the end, therefore it is logical that previously prohibited forces will come to the fore. It is a function of the West’s cherished democratic values.

James Badcock is editor of the English edition of the Spanish daily El Pais. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.