The Overthrow of Gaddafi Has Been Messy and Is Likely to Get Worse

But this is what the future probably looks like. Better get used to it. Like it or not, the ramshackle rebel army is, with the support of the Nato-based coalition, creating a new way of intervening and giving strength to a new strand of international law. Farewell Gladstonian liberal intervention with its gunboats; hello people's liberal intervention with its Ray-Bans, T-shirts and hastily converted pick-ups.
Of course, Libya isn't over yet.

The last days of Gaddafi could be just as messy as the long days that led to his downfall. He is more than mad enough and self-declared martyr enough to do something foolish at the end. But even if the battle ends soon and cleanly, the peace that follows is likely to be just as confused and chaotic as the conflict.

How could it be otherwise? We have intervened to prevent a massacre and let the Libyan people shape their own peace, rather than to seek to impose ours something which, by the way, we ourselves weren't very good at.

So, as we watch the National Transitional Council struggle to build a government (security should be its first priority), it would be in order to remember with humility that when we tried to do the same thing in Baghdad we didn't exactly make a roaring success of it or in Kabul either. Or, indeed, in many places where we have tried to create a Western peace after a foreign conflict.

We should now do all that we can to help the rebels to bring about order and government in Libya. But we will need to do so with understanding and patience. Better for the mistakes that will inevitably be made to be local ones, rather than our mistakes that they have to pay for, as in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 1997, before the Kosovo war started, I was in the little Albanian villages south of Pristina being bombarded by the main battle units of the Serb Army. The following day I met one of the Serb artillery commanders and found that he was more worried about being indicted by what was then the infant Yugoslav war crimes tribunal than he was of Nato's bombs.

The point about law is that it exists not just to deliver justice after the event but also to govern behaviour beforehand. After Kosovo, the world summit of 2005 gave form to a new international legal concept: the responsibility to protect (R2P for short). This asserted that, under international law, there ought to be an obligation (note "ought" and "obligation") on a government to protect its people, not abuse them. Many of us thought R2P would never be more than a piece of well-meaning rhetoric. But Libya has given R2P both form and precedent.

How R2P is carried forward post Libya will also not be smooth or free of contradictions. R2P will be applied with force in places where it can be Libya for example; but not be so applied in others, where it can't be Syria probably. But then this was true of classic liberal interventionism too.

International law does not spring from a single pen or a single piece of paper; it evolves over time confusingly, inelegantly and often in contradictory fashion. Libya has placed us slap-bang in the middle of that messy process.

Many of us, me included, feared that, after the Iraq debacle, the multilateral system might never be able to be used again for good ends. But it has been and triumphantly.

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Pelosi Faces Likely Leadership Challenge From Moderate Democrat - Fox News

Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, facing a growing rebellion against her bid to become minority leader, is likely to be challenged for the post by a moderate Democrat.

North Carolina Rep. Heath Shuler, who has been sending signals since last month that he would run against the San Francisco liberal if she didn't step aside, is expected to launch his leadership bid on Sunday when he appears on CNN's "State of the Union." He's also appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Monday.

Shuler, a former NFL quarterback, told the Clay County Progress this week that he had no choice but to leave the sidelines.

"At this point, no one has come forward, no one in leadership for a long time," Shuler told the North Carolina weekly newspaper. "It will be very tough. It is probably a race we can't win. But we need a moderate voice in the Democratic Party."

Shuler's spokeswoman did not return an e-mail seeking comment. Neither did Pelosi's office.

The challenge comes as House Democrats just avoided a messy leadership struggle between Reps. Steny Hoyer of Maryland and James Clyburn of South Carolina for the No. 2 post of their new minority. Pelosi brokered a deal that will allow Hoyer to become second in command while Clyburn receives a new position that will be labeled the third-ranking post in leadership.

But several Democrats, most of them moderates from conservative districts, have made clear that they won't support Pelosi's leadership bid after their party suffered historic losses to Republicans last week. 

Democrats lost more than 60 seats, with a few races still up in the air. Many of the defeats came in conservative or swing districts and many of her critics are lawmakers who barely survived.

Party elections, which occurs behind closed doors, are scheduled for Wednesday.

Pelosi's quick postelection announcement that she would run for minority leader startled many Democrats.

Rep. Dan Boren of Oklahoma told Fox News last week that voters sent a message that they want the Democratic Party to move in a new direction.

"They want someone to lead the party who is going to be bipartisan," he said. "This is very disappointing for a lot of us in the center."

Pelosi told NPR on Friday that she decided to run so she can finish what she started.

"My motivation for running is to be in the strongest possible position to create jobs, to continue the work we did in the previous administration, to preserve Social Security, to protect what we did for health care reform and Wall Street reform," she told the network.

She also blamed the high unemployment rate for last week's election results.

"We didn't lose the election because of me," she said, adding that she believes she has been widely attacked because of her effectiveness as speaker.

"The reason they had to try to take me down is because I've been effective in fighting the special interests in Washington, D.C.," she said.

On Friday, 31 female House Democrats, including two members-elect, endorsed Pelosi for minority leader in an open letter.

"As the first woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi has borne the brunt of unfair criticism and attacks, but her record of accomplishment speaks for itself – particularly to women," the letter reads, citing her record-high promotions of women into committee chairmanships, among other things.

"At a time when the incoming Majority is expected to threaten the progress we have made for women and families, we need Nancy Pelosi as Democratic Leader to help us stay unified and fight back," the letter says.

But even some longtime supporters of Pelosi have said she needs to step aside as the party leader.

"I voted for everything she asked me to vote for," said Rep. Albio Sires, D-N.J. "You know, sometimes in this business it's difficult to know when to move on."

"With all the losses that we had with governors and all the redistricting that's going to be done, we don't need the target," Sires said, referring to the once-a-decade House redistricting process about to begin nationwide.

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