Bogged Down in Libya

Nicolas Pelham

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Matthias Bruggman/Contact Press Images

Young men burning a portrait of Muammar Qaddafi, Benghazi, Libya, March 21, 2011

Benghazi has an air of exuberant chaos. One boy had painted his face in multiple tricolors: the French on one side, the rebels on the other, and the Italian on his nose. A Union Jack covered his backside. Obama saved me and my people, explained Nassim Salim, a seventeen-year-old holding his star-spangled banner aloft. Next day at Friday prayers outside the courthouse, which served as the rebel headquarters, the preacher denounced al-Qaeda. The faithful incanted God Is Great and Thanks America. It was the first time I had seen American flags in Arab demonstrations that were not being burned. Undoubtedly, the unlikely alignment of Islamism and America is in large part built on necessity; without Western intervention the rebel enterprise will collapse. If seen through to fruitionthe colonels downfallit could yet serve as the basis for deeper rapprochement, and mark the start of a healing process. But if the rebels enterprise fails, it could also go horribly wrong, deepening mutual mistrust and animosity. For now the relationship stands on a knife-edge.


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