A long-standing demand from the East Libyan rebels for any sort of peace talks, and seemingly among the reasons officials earlier in the day rejected the latest African Union attempt at brokering a ceasefire, has been the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi into exile.
But now rebel leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil says that demand no longer stands, and Gadhafi would be allowed to stay in Libya “under international supervision” during hypothetical peace talks. Exactly how those talks might start was unclear.
But Jalil’s demands went a bit deeper than this, insisting that before Gadhafi resigned he would also have to order all regime troops to abandon all of their positions and allow the rebels to take over the entire country.
Jalil insisted his proposal was nothing new and he made it to the United Nations a month ago. It seems unlikely, with both sides locked in a virtual stalemate, that any peace talks conditioned on the virtually total surrender of one side is going to be a realistic starting point.
The real reason we are bombing Libya is to establish Africom on African soil instead of Germany. I am totally antiwar but if I was prowar I would suggest a different strategy. Gadaffi is a political creature he wanted to be accepted by the world community. The Pentagon probably could have struck a deal with Gadaffi to let them build the bases in the desert. The Pentagon is too greedy though and wants all of the oil and water. I am sure if they said to Gadaffi you can either be bombarded or give up half your oil and water to support an invading army he probably would have acquiesced.
Oh, yeah! Brilliant idea. What could possibly go wrong?