The old adage rings true:
be careful what you wish for. With us cheering from afar (and perhaps, quite close by), rebels have breached Tripoli, and Gaddafi no longer has his ironclad grip on the nation. We chose not to enable his flee from the country a few days before the fall of the capital, and now he is missing. Hopefully we won't have to hunt for Gaddafi on the ground like we did Saddam Hussein.
Now on to a more vexing problem: who (or what entity) will step into the leadership/rule-of-law void that now exists in Libya?
I will couch this discussion by first saying we routinely underestimate the sophistication of terrorists and terror groups. This gives us a blind spot that is recognized by the enemy and then exploited through asymmetric attacks. These "attacks" may be subtle in form. They can occur by leveraging social networking to recruit, organize and fund. An attack can also be prosecuted through the political process. We need to remember the tenet of 5th Generation Warfare - it is unrestricted and is not merely fought with weapons on a battlefield. The enemy will use social, religious and political means to exert its will on the unsuspecting and achieve its goals.
There has been much in the press lately about a weakened al Qaeda. Perhaps this is what al Qaeda wants us to believe. Although loosely franchised, al Qaeda (read: the radical Islamist ideology) is still a force to reckon with and could easily step into a leadership void created by movements like the Arab Spring, or activities to remove a dictator from power.
I have always considered an overarching goal of a maturing al Qaeda to control a country and its resources. Imagine if AQ/AQ offshoots persist and have staying power like Hezbollah, in business and thriving for 30 years. They use profits extracted from their narco nexus with FARC and others and get into the care and feeding business, building schools and hospitals in war torn or poor areas such as Somalia, or Guinea Bissua. As the benefactors, they are welcomed into towns and cities, and provided safe harbor.
They legitimately enter the political process in a country (at least 7 are ripe for this activity), perhaps winning small elections at first, then gaining seats at the table of power. They attend meetings at the UN, like Hezbollah now does while representing the people of Lebanon. Slowly, al Qaeda ascends to power in a country and eventually takes over. Their political ascension could be an overt activity, or in through "sleepers" in the form of al Qaeda agents, who bide time and patiently work their way into the position of power.
Or, this political ascension is not eventual, but immediate as the group capitalizes on chaos and voids in power and law to seize control of people, land and resources.
For instance, Libya has approximately 20,000 shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles which are either lost or secured, depending on which news source you choose to believe.
Libya has stockpiles of mustard agent scattered throughout the country and uranium enriched "yellow cake" at the Tajjura nuclear research facility. News reports today indicate the rebels have this situation firmly in control. Not exactly reassuring.
According to security and news sources on the ground in Tripoli this morning, convicted and imprisoned Libyan nationals affiliated with al Qaeda have escaped from their jail cells. No word on the size of this group. I wonder, did they truly escape, or did the rebels let them go?
Perhaps for the first time, the U.S. and al Qaeda have been on the same side of the fight in Libya - we both backed the rebels. The bad news is that AQ is on the ground and we aren't, at least not in an official capacity.
Recall that Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, said in May that al Qaeda Jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq were on the front lines of the battle against Gaddafi's regime.
Please see my March post on Libya, regarding its highly educated, healthy populace and rich amount of natural resources, namely $32 billion in oil exported annually.
In our eagerness to rid the world of yet another dictator, we may have handed al Qaeda its biggest prize yet.
