23:34 pm, March 17 - The UN Security Council approved Resolution 1973/2011 at this moment with which authorizes air strikes in Libya. The square of Benghazi packed crowds of insurgents exploded in a roar of jubilation.
While the nuclear nightmare continues to smolder in Fukushima, the world's attention has shifted abruptly on Libya, which is experiencing one of the most dramatic moments of the entire Arab spring.
Four hours ago, at 19.40 Italian time, Gaddafi gave the speech on television that could be fatal. Announced that its forces were advancing on Benghazi, that it intends to address this very night, that the insurgents were invited to surrender and that they would have searched for his "house to house." He dared to say: "For those who do not surrender we will not have mercy." And 'this phrase, perhaps more than any other, he did rush things.
Rather than disperse in fear, as perhaps he hoped Gadhafi, the insurgents have massed in the main square in Benghazi against him shouting and waving their flags. In order to subjugate them, at this point, it would take a real massacre.
at 20.35 Italian time, the Associated Press outposts announced that government forces were at 130 km from the gates of Benghazi. It means that they had passed the rock of Ajdabiya and had the green light for the city. More or less simultaneously, the French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe declared that air strikes could begin immediately after any resolution adopted by the Security Council, suggesting a direct action in practice in France.
now the resolution is approved. This is not a no-fly zone. The Security Council "authorizes member states ... to take all necessary measures ... to protect civilians and areas populated by civilians under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Benghazi including, excluding the input a force of foreign occupation in any form in any part of Libya. "
What is allowed is, in practice, an air war without limits.
E 'might be enough to stop this greeting only for the immediate attack on Benghazi. But what will be the consequences, it is difficult to imagine. There is something disturbing about this decision. The geopolitical reality of the great coming out of his paralysis, without departing from its contradictions.
Already this should worry us: but what I find even more disturbing is that the United States and Britain have already declared tonight that Gaddafi should be removed from power. They have already decided what should be their fate in Libya.
Now, Gadhafi is certainly a grim picture, a violent, full of himself a fanatic who has all the characteristics of a despot.
But as you can see, the Libyan uprising did not look like a choral revolution of the people as those of Egypt and Tunisia. More like a civil war. When, nearly a month ago, I wrote on this blog that Gaddafi had counted the hours, I had not felt the difference, which is not only the fact that, in Libya, the United States and the West have no grip on the regime.
It 'clear that Gaddafi in Tripoli at least, has some measure of support. This will be partly bought with cash, partly taken away by a relentless propaganda, partly exchanged benefices and privileges, in part intended to evaporate into thin air as soon as the fate of the despot seemed destined to go down. But the fact is that today nobody is able to determine which is really the sentiment that prevails across the nation Libya. The only way to determine what is required by the principle of democracy: free elections, regular and general.
If Qaddafi is proclaimed from the beginning that must be removed from power, there is a danger that you intend to repeat the sad spectacle of Iraq and Afghanistan. Where elections were held to laugh, driven by the occupation forces, preventing the participation of Saddam and the Taliban, who had probably, in both cases, a consensus was not far from fifty per cent. This is not the Arabs who dream of democracy, this is not what we have dreamed. Not a good sign that already outlawed in Tunisia has been the party of the late Ben Ali.
seems unlikely that Qaddafi in Libya can hope for anything like a consensus of fifty percent, if free elections were held. But this is just another good reason to let the Libyans to decide. Otherwise, once again, democracy has not defeated, but the force: that is the exact opposite.
are now two in the morning. There is no advance notice of troop Gaddafi on Benghazi. An hour ago, a spokesman said that the Libyan government intends to "respond positively" to the resolution of the Security Council. We will soon see what it means. For now the streets are full of Tobruk and Benghazi still of joy in a tireless waving of flags. Among the many all the same, green, red and black, there are some that stand out: they are red, white and blue. Certainly those who flies has in mind the words of Juppe. But who knows, maybe he is thinking of something else, which we hope Juppe not forget: the one that, even before the banner of France, was the flag of freedom.
