Will a Stalemate in Libya lead to the Nationalization of Western Oil Companies?

The papers today were vey light on news from Libya so my guess is the polling numbers are not going Obama’s way. A week ago the rebels were marching west toward Tripoli. Gaddafi’s troops were in retreat and under attack from US fighter bombers. Cruise missiles were destroying Libyan air defenses. But the tide turned last Monday when Gaddafi’s forces repulsed the rebels at Sirte and retook the oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Brega. Note: Brega currently is being contested by rebels but is still considered in government hands.

NATO has since taken operational command of combat operations and the US has announced it has withdrawn its attack aircraft and will restrict itself to only tanker, jamming and reconnaissance mission. NATO has said it will not arm the rebels and the President and Defense Secretary have publicly ruled out the use of ground forces.

So where does that leave the coalition? Not in very good shape. We backed a ragtag undisciplined group of rebels with no fighting experience and expected them to defeat a trained military. We expected a no fly zone to halt Gaddafi’s troops then stopped flying support missions ourselves. Neither battles nor wars are won by timid actions and this will unfortunately prove it.

It will probably end up a stalemate, but with Gaddafi’s troops chipping away at the rebels in Benghazi. Likely they will simply drift away with Gaddafi and his family still in power. What the coalition never contemplated was the downside of not achieving victory.

Dictators, even benevolent ones, don’t take kindly to JDAMs landing in their sleeping quarters. It is likely Gaddafi is more than a little bit ticked at having his sleep disturbed followed by announcements from Washington, Paris and London that he must go. Will he retaliate? Of course he will. This is the Middle East.

The most vulnerable assets coalition countries have in Libya are its oil companies.  They include -- US: ConocoPhillips, Marathon, Hess, Occidental and ExxonMobil, UK: BP and Anglo Dutch Shell and France: government owned TOTAL. Oil likely will continue to flow, but not under the ownership of the western oil companies. Likely substitutes to operate nationalized facilities are Chinese and Russians operators who are ever willing to take advantage of western missteps.

Lesson for the future: There is no substitute for victory.

NATO allies practice “Catch and Release” with pirates

Today’s New York Times carries a story about an attempted seizure of a Norwegian tanker last night. NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- NATO warships and helicopters pursued Somali pirates for seven hours after they attacked a Norwegian tanker, NATO spokesmen said Sunday, and the high-speed chase only ended when warning shots were fired at the pirates' skiff. Seven pirates attempted to attack the Norwegian-flagged MV Front Ardenne late Saturday but fled after crew took evasive maneuvers and alerted warships in the area, said Portuguese Lt. Cmdr. Alexandre Santos Fernandes, aboard a warship in the Gulf of Aden, and Cmdr. Chris Davies, of NATO's maritime headquarters in England. You might wonder what happens to these brigands once caught. Here is the surprising answer: Both ships deployed helicopters, and naval officers hailed the pirates over loudspeakers and finally fired warning shots to stop them, Fernandes said, but not before the pirates had dumped most of their weapons overboard. NATO forces boarded the skiff, where they found a rocket-propelled grenade, and interrogated, disarmed and released the pirates. The pirates cannot be prosecuted under Canadian law because they did not attack Canadian citizens or interests and the crime was not committed on Canadian territory. I pointed out the necessity of establishing a legal framework if we are to cure the cancer of piracy in an earlier post last November. The worst thing any nation can do is exhibit weakness and a lack of resolve, it only emboldens the pirates. Piracy on the high seas comes under universal jurisdiction and can be enforced and prosecuted anywhere. Surely the laws of Norway were violated, where are they? If the Canadians don’t permit prosecution, they should not be part of the protection force, they only complicate the problem. Treating piracy as a domestic legal problem will never solve the problem. Only a legal framework that allows preventative force will solve it. Prebble and Decatur went after the source of the Barbary Pirates in 1804 and cleaned house. What would their attitude be of Catch and Release?