The Arab Revolution - the Conditions for International Military Intervention

The Arab Revolution

The conditions for international military intervention

Ever since a man in Tunisia burned himself to death in December 2010 in protest at his treatment by police, pro-democracy rebellions have erupted across the Middle East. Egypt, Libya, Syria and others have faced social manifestations that aimed to change or modify actual regimes. As a reaction, governments have faced the challenge in a repressing manner. The most recent examples of such are Syria and Libya where the governments were quick to denunciate the manifestations as acts of rebellion instead of legitimate calls for changes.

Both scenarios were met with violence and belligerence on behalf of the authorities. In Syria thousands have fled to neighboring Turkey and hundreds have been injured or killed by police or military. In Libya the situation was similarly distressful where hundreds if not thousands of unsatisfied Libyans faced harsh punishments from their government. Despite the violence, it was only in the Libyan case that the international community decided to take military action and not remain looking from outside while the country was bleeding out. Why only with Libya and not Syria, nor Egypt or Yemen?

This paper aims to elucidate the decision making process of entering an intrastate conflict by international third parties centering in the recent cases of Libya and Syria. In other words we look to understand the main components by which the international community evaluates the decision to militarily enter an intrastate conflict, specifically the recent civil war in Libya that ended with the death of Colonel Gaddafi and the ongoing civil unrest in Syria. The paper is divided into four different sections being this short introduction the first one. The second part is an equally short section retelling the events in Libya and Syria. The third section deals with the necessary conditions for third party interventions in intrastate conflicts and finally the paper ends with a set of concluding remarks.

How and why the Arab Spring happened in Libya and Syria

The demonstrations that were sparked by Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation in protest of police corruption in Tunisia in December 2010 spread a contagion of revolutions across North Africa and the Middle East. Anti-government protests began in Libya on 15 February 2011. Shortly thereafter the opposition controlled most of Benghazi, the country's second-largest city. The government dispatched elite troops and mercenaries in an attempt to recapture it, but they were repelled. Soon later the protests had spread to the capital Tripoli, leading to a television address by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who warned the protestors that their country could descend into civil war. As the violence grew, so did the attention of the international community.

The protests escalated into