Europe facing Libya dilemma

By Dana Muntean

The role of the US as a world leader and conflict settler is expected to be prominent now as well. But Obama administration is tending to limit the American role in the Libyan crisis. US officials have been shifting responsibility to the European countries to take the initiative in world powers' response to Gadhafi. The current administration also wants to limit military involvement in the so portrayed civil war, emerging at a time when U.S. forces are overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This is predominately a European problem, in the sense that they are the ones who have the most at stake," said a senior U.S. official. The U.S. military's minimal role in the crisis has become noticeable in recent days as several European allies, Great Britain, France and Italy sent their armed forces to evacuate citizens from Libya.

The proximity of Libya to southern Europe is raising the fears of the Italian, French and other governments. The rising violance will create a humanitarian crisis, with thousands of refugees making their way across the Mediterranean.

A big moment in the decision to intervene in Libya was when the Arab League passed a resolution calling on the Security Council to set up a no-fly zone in Libya.

The clash of interests in Europe were obvious from the start. The UN Security Council vote included an abstention by Germany, which plays a key role in the EU and NATO decision-making process. There are complications and disagreements among big European powers, one of the disputes is caused by French who not want to run the operation through NATO and Turks that began to not want to have a military operation against Libya, but now apparently backtrack it.

A remarkable scene was earlier in the week when the secretary-general of NATO criticized the French and the Germans, causing their officials' walk out of the room in anger. This fall in reaching and agreement have long-term consequences for the EU and for NATO, in part because the EU is under tremendous stress due to economic and financial problems.

Forces must be united and the European countries and their allies should follow the same discourse in order to make sure that the goal is achieved and Qaddafi goes. Their hesitation has a too big price, that of the human lives.