For what it’s worth, my opinion is that government made the right decision about Libya and the UN resolution. Active participation in the war (for war it is) would have been rash. The reasons have nothing to do with peace or neutrality or ‘Mediterranean geopolitics’, whatever that means. Rather, this war somehow doesn’t square.

Two-dimensionality is best left for pot-boilers. I’m not fully convinced that this is a straightforward case of an isolated dictator who set his sights on enlightened revolutionaries.

I was quite appalled, for example, by the anti-Semitism (‘Gaddafi is a Jew’) and racism (‘black mercenaries from the jungle’) of some of the Libyan guests on Affari Tagħna. If this is the revolution, we had better start looking forward to the past.

Speaking of Affari Tagħna, I also thought it relevant that the imam, usually so keen on dispensing justice minus a limb or two, chose not to comment.

Instead, he said a prayer. (It never occurred to John Bundy, fine inquisitive journalist that he is, to press him to get to the point.)

The imam may be in ample company. A number of specialist observers have described how substantial tribes and groups have been lukewarm towards the revolution, to say the least.

There certainly is a strong element of rent-a-crowd about those pro-Gaddafi rallies but leaving it at that would be too simple.

I am not saying that the revolution is misplaced, or that Gaddafi is a popular leader who has been demonised by the western media.

Caveats aside, it’s pretty clear to me that the man is at least five decades past his best-before date. His adult life has been one big top of tyranny, misogyny, and racism. (This column for one has been consistently critical of the act.) In a nutshell it’s time Libya, and the rest of us, got rid of this nasty piece of work.

All set for Malta to offer up its airfields (wherever these might be) to the just cause then? No, not really.

Let’s first deal with ‘neutrality’ and ‘national security’. I’m not even sure neutrality figures at all here.

We’re talking about a UN resolution. The whole point of the UN is to serve as a ‘neutral’ field of international relations, in the sense that it doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t, represent particular interests. The other option would be to let, say, the US ‘police the world’ at unilateral will and leisure.

One cannot rely on a glib belief in peace at all times. (I usually take a rainbow flag to mean ‘marijuana smoked on the premises’.)

Our best bet is rather that states align themselves to a cosmopolitan politics of common interest, safeguarded by military means if necessary. UN resolutions are as close to that model as they get. Neutrality towards them is a recipe for war, not peace.

Arguments from ‘national security’ – the Prime Minister’s “prime concern”, in his own words – are equally perverse in this case.

It would, in fact, be very much in Malta’s national interest (if we must) to actively support this UN resolution.

That’s because security is one of the things the UN has a mandate to protect. Our national security also depends on the will of the UN to break a lance or two in our favour, should the need arise (remember the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait?). In vulgar terms, participation is actually a form of insurance.

The upshot is that neutrality and national security are a dismal set of twins. As for the rhetoric of Malta’s natural vocation for peace-building and mediation… this is the equivalent of the imam’s prayer on Affari Tagħna, shall we say.

And yet I still think the government’s decision was a good one. This war’s ill-timed. The UN dragged its feet for weeks and then a bit longer as we watched the chaos and bloodshed on our screens.

Timing was crucial for at least two reasons. First, it’s clear that the protests caught Gaddafi napping and that for a day or two he was indeed on the verge of making an exit. He then recomposed himself and changed from a fugitive with an umbrella into a comeback fighter with an army.

On their part the rebels transformed themselves from civilian protesters into an armed force of sorts. Ragtag and disorganised and ill-equipped they may be, but still not really the civilians they started out as.

The result is that the ‘better late than never’ argument no longer works. The situation is now infinitely more complex than it was three weeks ago and requires remedies other than ‘no-fly zones’ and ‘protection of civilians’.

Take Gaddafi’s own position. Three weeks ago it would have been reasonable to stop him killing unarmed civilians, because that’s what he was doing.

Now, however, he’s up against a different species, armed and ready to go west. The UN resolution effectively sets up an impossible situation. If Gaddafi fights he violates his own ceasefire and gets bombed; if he doesn’t, his army gets trashed and he gets toppled.

Not that I’m sorry for him but it all sounds rather like ‘regime change’ – which the UN resolution was not about. We therefore have an illogical resolution, or one that is stingy with the truth.

The second problem is that the war lacks clear objectives and command structures. Barack Obama and others have said that Gaddafi ‘must go’.

Amen to that, but they have also said – a tad confusingly, it seems to me – that he is not a target.

There are also questions about the definition of a no-fly zone and whether or not this includes serving as the unofficial air force of the rebels (which seems to be the allies’ role at the moment).

Plus all the allegations of ‘mission creep’ and reports of behind-the-scenes jostles over who should be leading the action.

A clear UN move to topple Gaddafi would have been a real poke in the eye for Malta’s neutrality.

This, however, is not it, and government is quite right to be cautious.

mafalzon@hotmail.com