Independent: Similarities between Libya, Iraq under Saddam Ominous

British daily The Independent said that Libya's parallels with Iraq under Saddam are truly ominous. While noting that opposition leaders in Libya hope that time is on their side, it highlighted that Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein thought much the same 20 years ago.

The ingredients are certainly there for a prolonged conflict, Patrick Cockburn wrote. Claims that Muammar Gaddafi is about to fall sound unnervingly similar to predictions in 1991 that Saddam Hussein was going to lose power in Iraq after his calamitous defeat in Kuwait and uprisings by Shia and Kurds that he brutally crushed, he added.

In fact, Saddam survived for another 12 years and was finally only overthrown by an American and British invasion that plunged the country deeper than ever into violence from which it has still not recovered, Cockburn highlighted. Could the same thing happen with Gaddafi? he wondered. “It no longer seems likely, as it did during the first few weeks of the Libyan uprising, that he will soon be fleeing for his life from Tripoli or will be the victim of a coup by his own lieutenants.”

Cockburn said that Gaddafi has proved that he is the most powerful player in Libya. “Air strikes by the US, France and Britain aimed at stopping Gaddafi's tanks and troops taking Benghazi have had success. The burnt-out carcasses of armored vehicles litter the sides of the road between Benghazi and Ajdabiya. But the situation has not changed since this early success. It is still only the threat of Nato air strikes that is preventing Gaddafi's men capturing Benghazi today just as they almost did a few weeks ago.”

The opposition leaders comfort themselves with the belief that Tripoli and the east of this vast country is bubbling with unrest that will ultimately boil over and force out Gaddafi and his family, he noted. “It might happen that way, but there is little sign of it. The regime in Tripoli appears to have recovered its nerve and has the forces to crush any fresh local uprising. For the moment Libya is effectively partitioned with the dividing line running along the old frontier between the historic provinces of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. Gaddafi's troops may not be able to advance in the face of air strikes, but they also have not retreated pell-mell after heavy losses. They have adapted to the air threat by driving around in dirt-covered pick-ups which look exactly the same as those driven by rebels and civilians.”

“When this Libyan war started I was struck by the parallels with foreign intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Cockburn stressed. “Now, at close range, I find the similarities even more ominous. We have joined somebody else's civil war, and it is a war in which Britain, France and the US must inevitably play a leading role. Without our support, the local partner would be defeated within 24 hours.”

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian