What Anniversary?

An anniversary passed this week that went almost completely unremarked — and for good reason. March 17th marked the three-year anniversary of the UN Security Council resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya to stop the Moammar Qaddafi regime from attacking rebel-held Benghazi and Ajdabiya, and the three-year anniversary on the 19th of the NATO war on Libya. French, British, and American planes began bombarding the Qaddafi regime, an air war that would continue for months — while Barack Obama refused to request Congressional approval for it. Later, Obama would claim that Libya represented the smart model of Western intervention.

If so, why did these anniversaries pass unremarked? The Associated Press report on the status of Libya today gives a very good answer, although it is not written as such. Libya has become a failed state, where the government’s writ doesn’t run outside of its capital, and not even everywhere within that. Not only is it a dangerous place, but it is a danger to the surrounding nations in north Africa too.

Libya, where hundreds of militias hold sway and the central government is virtually powerless, is awash in millions of weapons with no control over their trafficking. The arms free-for-all fuels not only Libya’s instability but also stokes conflicts around the region as guns are smuggled through the country’s wide-open borders to militants fighting in insurgencies and wars stretching from Syria to West Africa.