On Sunday, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Nabil Elaraby, told a press conference that he had requested the League to activate the joint Arab defence treaty in order to address the Libya crisis and the other theatres of war involving Daesh (IS).
He added that his request had so far been met “with negligence”. We have to see if he repeats that request today, in his speech at the Washington anti-terrorism summit. Whether the proposal is picked up or not is relevant to any talk about UN intervention in Libya.
Let’s be clear about why the proposal is worth paying attention to. It’s not because of who made it or because of the content of the treaty itself.
In the conflict with Daesh, the Arab League is, in itself, a marginal actor. The decision-makers remain the Arab national leaders who, in cooperating between themselves, can and do bypass the League.
The joint defence treaty Elaraby referred to was signed in 1950. That’s so long ago that three of the signatories, Egypt, Iraq and Yemen, were still kingdoms. The members of the League were only seven; now they’re 22. Libya, the main trigger for invoking the treaty today, was then not even independent; in fact, the whole of North Africa was still colonised.
The treaty was signed as a defence against “external threats” (for which read Israel). I’m not sure it’s been invoked more than twice in the last seven decades. Once was in 1961, during the Kuwait crisis. In 1976, it was invoked to justify a peace-keeping mission in Lebanon, then engulfed in civil war. However, one of the benefits of having been used little and not recently (it was not invoked when Saddam Hussein annexed Kuwait in 1990) is that there is no accumulation of binding precedents. It’s a treaty that can be, and has been, interpreted creatively.
It’s evident that the treaty is not necessary for Arab armies to take action against Daesh. Egypt has undertaken several bombing missions over eastern Libya to retaliate against the killing of the 21 Egyptian Copts. It’s even said to be contemplating a ground operation.
The case of Jordan is even more clear. Jordan’s armed reaction to the barbaric immolation of one of its pilots has not been simply a national one. It has received aid and resources from the Gulf states. It is said that even troops have been placed under Jordan’s military direction.
Jordan is effectively leading and coordinating a sub-regional Arab alliance against Daesh. It can do so because the Jordanian armed forces have long been deeply involved in conducting military training and maintenance of equipment for various regimes in the region. Jordan’s praetorian guard recruits heavily from tribes that have cross-border kinship and trade networks in Iraq and the Gulf, while the kingdom’s small size makes it easier for other countries to trust it with sensitive security matters.
No wonder, then, that Elaraby’s original request was met “with negligence”. The League’s member states don’t need it to be able to act or coordinate military action between themselves.
However, the treaty does offer the cloak of legitimacy and two factors are now making legitimacy more salient.
The first is the peculiarity of the Libyan case. In the Syrian-Iraqi theatre of war, the legitimacy of military action was not disputed by the vast majority of the peoples in the territories. In Libya, though, the legitimacy of Egyptian and any other Arab intervention has been questioned by the Tripoli-based government.
Jordan is effectively leading and coordinating a sub-regional Arab alliance against Daesh
It’s obvious why it would do this. Egypt – and the Arab League itself – recognise the Tobruk government. Egypt has been already heavily involved in helping the armed forces of the Tobruk alliance against the Tripoli alliance.
Tripoli must suspect, with some reason, that any Egyptian intervention in Libya is likely to be used not just against Daesh but also against it – to sweep it comprehensively out of Libyan politics, particularly since the Egypt-backed Libyan general, Khalifa Haftar, has sworn to banish all Islamists, of whatever colour, from Libya.
The second factor that might now make the joint defence treaty more attractive is this: the Gulf states, in particular, are increasingly concerned about the turmoil in Yemen.
Arab insistence on an international alliance to confront Daesh, Al-Qaeda and their affiliates is growing. There is a limit to the number of fronts that the Gulf regimes can fight on effectively. Their partial reliance on Jordan already exposes their limitations.
They are also keenly aware that the presence of an armed international coalition on Gulf soil is what Daesh hopes for. It would show up the regimes’ inability to defend their own societies by themselves. The presence of US or European soldiers on Arab soil would in itself delegitimise regimes and possibly serve to mobilise opposition.
In this context, the invocation of the joint defence treaty might address the legitimacy issue. It would redefine Daesh as an external, alien threat. By framing any military action as part of a pan-Arab self-defence – as opposed to the incursion by one State into the sovereign territory of another – it would save appearances. In principle, at least, it should provide supervised limits to intervention.
Whether Elaraby’s request will now be picked up remains to be seen. But it is clear that the issue will have a bearing on the available military options.
The actual choice is not between military intervention and none. If nothing else is done, Egypt’s involvement in eastern Libya will continue to grow. The Algerian army is already making incursions in the west. Its involvement, too, will increase if Daesh expands in Libya: a Daesh triumph would mean Algeria’s turn would come soon.
So the choice is between supervised engagement – in which Libya’s chances for a real post-conflict peace and free society are protected – and armed intervention in which Libya’s interests are subordinated to those of its neighbours.
The core issue is whether a UN resolution plus the activation of the joint Arab defence treaty would help one reinforce the other: the notion of Arab self-defence dampening down suspicions of Western intervention; the UN dimension guaranteeing that it would not be an Egyptian sweep of all political adversaries, not just terrorists.
On Tuesday, the President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Sisi, was himself calling for UN intervention. I suspect, however, that it might take US guarantees to reassure the Tripoli alliance.
ranierfsadni@europe.com