LIBYA, YES IRAN, NO
David Carlton on when
it is prudent for the West to hit back at terrorism
`THOSE who think we have gone soft on terrorism should ask Colonel Gaddafi.' With thdse words an embarrassed Presi- dent Reagan sought at his news conference on 13 November to divert attention from the implications of the exposure of his covert dealings with Iran. The question of the hour is whether this will play in Peoria. In short, can the President with any plausi- bility continue to impersonate John Wayne, Rambo and other much-loved Americans? Or is he destined for the remainder of his presidency to be lam- pooned as hapless Jimmy Reagan or, worse, pilloried as shady Richard M. Reagan? My guess is that he has just enough assets in the Bank of Middle America — that is, more than any Presi- dent in modern times — to be able through obfuscation to live down the Iranian fiasco. And this, incidentally, seems also to be the judgment of our admirably opportunistic Prime Minister, who has unhesitatingly rallied behind him in his hour of need.
Reagan's assets in the Bank of Middle America have been built up steadily over the last six years. But for his present purposes undoubtedly the largest deposit he ever made came last April with the bombing of Tripoli. Indeed, the maturity and brilliance of that move from his point of view are becoming clearer every day as the extent of the disinformation campaign waged against Libya emerges. In other words, Reagan certainly knew last April that most state-sponsored terrorism against American citizens was not in fact Gaddafi's responsibility. The reality was and is that the Iranians and the Syrians are the prin- cipal guilty parties but they have the good sense to make fewer provocative proclama- tions and claims than Gaddafi. Thus Reagan was enabled to pursue a conscious policy of appeasing Iran and Syria while pacifying unsophisticated but aroused American opinion by punishing the maver- ick Libyans.
It is simply the most marvellous luck that Libya has a tiny population, is geographi- cally remote from the Soviet Union, has extremely limited armed forces, and is run by an egomaniac who cannot count on consistent support from the Soviets or, indeed, from anyone else. In short, Libya is an ideal punchbag for the Americans in an imperfect world where the meting out of somewhat uneven justice is often the only sensible course.
The fact is that in the face of the present nuisance level of global terrorism — in- volving infinitely fewer casualties in ad- vanced countries than road accidents — it is inexpedient for a superpower to take drastic action on each and every occasion when a spectacular but essentially trival incident can be traced back to a sponsoring state. Those who doubt this should give close attention to the writings of Professor Paul Wilkinson, who is among the fore- most British authorities on international terrorism. He is of course no apologist for terrorists or terror-sponsoring states. On the contrary, he goes further than most serious authorities in categorically denying the ethical case for ever accepting that one person's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Nevertheless, in a `revised, ex- tended and updated' edition of his impor- tant Terrorism and the Liberal State (Mac- millan, reissued in 1986), he urges Western democracies to tread a carefully calculated path between, on the one hand, 'under- reaction, political inertia and the disin- tegration of the state' and, on the other hand, 'over-reaction, indiscriminate rep- ression and the loss of popular support and legitimacy'. And he takes much the same line in his contribution to Terrorism and International Order, a symposium just pub- lished under the auspices of Chatham House (Routledge, £5.95).
So far as punishing states sponsoring 'There's a strong aftertaste of hype.' terrorism is concerned, Wilkinson urges restraint: ‘. . . such action would be most likely to cause a spiral of terrorism and counter-terrorism, with all the risks of escalation to full scale war.' In particular, he is concerned that `the state under attack might very well call on its allies, perhaps even the Soviet Union, to protect it,' and hence possibly cause a superpower con- flict. He concludes that 'in purely strategic terms in a nuclear age this is an extremely dangerous form of risk-taking'.
This line of argument in favour of general restraint and even `appeasement' deserves to be taken extremely seriously. It does not follow, however, as Wilkinson supposes, that in the particular case of the bombing of Tripoli the American line was unsound. For what he appears not suffi- ciently to have appreciated are the domes- tic pressures that inevitably build up in countries which are repeatedly subjected to state-sponsored terroristic acts of however minor a character. The lesson to be derived from Austria-Hungary's re- sponse to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo in 1914 is that given the appearance of sufficient provoca- tion (in that case from Serbia, an ally of Russia) a great power will come under a near-irresistible temptation to lash out at whatever cost to general international sta- bility.
What Reagan has clearly grasped is that Libya is not an equivalent of Serbia. It is a particularly weak sister in the international community and hence can be bombed with relatively high confidence that internation- al complications can be avoided. How fortunate we are, then, that Gaddafi is still in power in Tripoli and is continuing to shout defiance at the West, as his recent impudent declaration of support for IRA terrorism in the Republic of Ireland de- monstrates. For the happy consequence is that any time domestic American ex- asperation with terrorism again gets out of hand, there is an easy target available for a cathartic strike — which could have the incidental effect of enabling Reagan to leave office in a blaze of glory.
Meanwhile the really dangerous courses, against which Professor Wilkinson warns, will presumably be avoided. In short, Teheran and Damascus will continue to be appeased in one form or another (not- withstanding the imposition of token sanc- tions on the latter as a gesture of gratitude to Mrs Thatcher). True, the policy of bargaining for the release of hostages will for the foreseeable future have to be left to the unspeakably cynical French. But once the dust has settled Reagan will be able to resume the pursuit in all essentials of a Middle East policy that amounts to Carter- ism without Carter. If only Count Berch- told had been so fortunate in 1914!
Dr David Carlton is author of Anthony Eden: a Biography, recently reissued by Unwin Paperbacks.
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