Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi poses after an interview with TRT Turkish television reporter Mehmet Akif Ersoy at the Rixos hotel in Tripoli March 8, 2011.STR/Reuters
The NATO mission in Libya is now expressly about ending the 42-year rule of the dictator Moammar Gadhafi. "He has no future in a free, democratic Libya. He must go," the G8, whose members overlap with NATO's, declared on Friday at meetings in France. That is not, explicitly, the mission that was authorized by the United Nations and supported unanimously in the House of Commons in March. That mission was about using "all necessary measures" to protect civilians and enforce a no-fly zone. Stephen Harper, when he raises the extension in Parliament, should explain that leap - why it happened, what it means for Canada's commitment in lives and equipment, and how long this country may be asked to stay.
Mr. Harper was right to support the Libyan war as a moral imperative. "One either believes in freedom, or one just says one believes in freedom." And there is no question that intervention was needed to save thousands of civilians potentially at risk from forces that support Colonel Gadhafi. But such terms as Mr. Harper used tend to provide a blank cheque for war. There may be good reasons to support the war's extension into the realm of regime change, but Canadians need the case made to them, and they should ask questions at every step.
Why, for instance, Libya's freedom, and not another's? Why not Yemen, why not Syria, why not Zimbabwe? What is the strategic purpose for being in Libya for what may be a long haul? Col. Gadhafi is a brutal dictator, but he is not the only one.
What are the conditions on the ground - in threats to civilians - that demand not merely maintenance of air strikes on obvious military targets but regime change? Is regime change essential for the protection of civilians?
The pressure is building on Col. Gadhafi, with Russia agreeing that he must go, and it would be wonderful to see this dictator depart the scene. Meanwhile, the war expands, with NATO sending in helicopter gunships, as urged months ago by Libyan rebels.
There is no formula for an endgame in a war. The original UN resolution was broad and ambiguous - "all measures" could be read to include an attack on Col. Gadhafi, as a combatant under international military law. (Hence the bombing that killed a Gadhafi son and three grandchildren.) In light of the evolving nature of the conflict, and apparently the objectives, Mr. Harper has promised that Parliament will once again have an opportunity to debate the mission. That's a good thing. The process needs to keep up with the war.