Back in the days when the Rubik's Cube was young, Sordel's approach to this small bundle of polychrome frustration was as follows: if the current situation was not to one's liking, give it another turn and hope that it improves. Now in the grand scheme of things, this is an imperfect approach to solving a Rubik's Cube ... but it is an absolutely disastrous method for solving foreign policy.
Barack Obama has got the red side solved by turning the United States back into a Republican stronghold. Now, like most presidents who have been made redundant by electoral failure, he is looking across the sea. Rather than concentrate on Afghanistan or Iraq or Pakistan or Guantanamo Bay, however, he has set his sights on Libya. According to the New York Times this was much against his better judgement, but he seems to have been bounced into it by the French, who in this demonstrate an inclination to ironic comedy for which they have not as a nation been previously noted.
("You want some "Freedom Fries" with that, mon ami?")
Naturally there are some who are cheering on this latest excursion on the basis that it protects the fragile seedling of democracy. Quite what species these seedlings are that are peeking out from the oil-drenched soil of the Middle East is, however, open to question, as is the strength of feeling behind the protests that accompany them. After all, when thousands of people marched against the Iraq war, this was regarded by Tony Blair as mere grumbling, but if a hundred people raise a banner in Africa we are evidently ready to recognise their government.
If three men and a dog claimed that the town Sordel lives in had fallen into rebel hands, the BBC would colour it a different colour on a map and start describing the dog as "regional governor".
Whatever the rights and wrong of the two sides in the civil war for Libya, we can be sure that ordinary citizens with very little interest in politics will now be killed by both sides, and by the foreign airstrikes. With Obama's promise of "no ground troops" (a promise that immediately seems impossible to keep) we are looking to the rebels to provide an effective police system capable of restraining a Qadaffi regime that will inevitably conceal itself within the general population.
In the meantime, if the U.S. is serious about protecting freedom-loving innocents from an oppressor's rain of fire, it can do so by stopping bombing children gathering wood in Afghanistan.
Maybe finish one of our other wars before starting another?
