The power of the weak

CAIRO

The weak have a new power in the modern media age: Theirsuffering is visible to millions of well-intentioned people aroundthe world who are likely to support humanitarian intervention torescue them from their plight.

But there's a dangerous corollary to this new power of the weak:It can lead disorganized groups to start fights with establishedauthorities that they can't finish - unless they are rescued bylarger powers. In this sense, the media attention emboldens the veryactions that can lead to slaughter and repression.

This paradoxical power of the weak is obvious today in Libya,where a ragtag, barely organized group of rebels challenged theentrenched power of the dictator, Moammar Gaddafi. The world (or atleast, the portion of it that watches cable television) quicklyrallied to the rebels' cause. Their very helplessness was part oftheir attraction.

The impulse to help the embattled Libyan rebels preceded anyserious analysis of their leadership and intentions. The images oftheir plight also trumped an assessment of whether the rebels couldwin, or how they would govern if, somehow, they did succeed.Reversing the normal order of priorities, Western intelligenceagencies are struggling to assess who these people are, after theUnited Nations, the Arab League and NATO have decided to help them.

It may seem heartless to question the logic of humanitarianintervention, especially in the moment when disaster seems imminent.But it's useful to have some benchmarks - and to understand thesubtle reverse leverage that is at work here. Otherwise, policy willinevitably be driven by the images of defenseless people who havetaken up arms against the evil regime.

I first saw the power of the weak in action in Lebanon during theearly 1980s. Despite overwhelmingly superior firepower, the Israeliswere unable to drive the Palestine Liberation Organization fromBeirut in 1982. A major reason was that the conflict was televised.To pry the Palestinians loose, the Israelis would have had to use alevel of force and physical intimidation that would have horrifiedthe world.

The Israelis' problem, as I wrote at the time, was that theirmedia wires got crossed: The Palestinians watching concluded thatthe Israelis, despite their modern army, were less threatening thanthey appeared. The rest of the world concluded that with theiroverwhelming firepower, the Israelis were bullies. That problem ofmixed messaging has persisted for Israel ever since.

Lebanese militias also used the power of the weak: The Christianmilitia known as the Phalange started a civil war in 1975 that itcouldn't win, expecting that France and other former colonial powers(plus the United States) would come to its rescue. In the end it wasSyria that led a so-called Arab Deterrent Force to maintain thestatus quo, and the civil war ground on for another 15 years.

The power of the weak was demonstrated by the Muslims of Bosnia,who declared independence from the Serbian-led Yugoslavia in 1992,despite overwhelming Serbian military power. Their cause wasappealing (as was that of the Lebanese Christians, the Palestiniansand, more recently, the Libyans). The problem was that they couldn'twin on their own. So the world watched heart-rending images of thedestruction of Sarajevo; it was the gruesome massacre at Srebrenicain July 1995 that finally brought decisive internationalintervention to stop the war.

Weakness was strength, too, for Kosovo in its 1999 campaign forindependence from Serbia. The plucky Kosovars were lucky, too, inbattling an unpopular foe, Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. TheKosovars would have been savaged had they continued to fight ontheir own. But NATO intervened with a three-month bombing campaignto support the breakaway province, and Milosevic capitulated in June1999.

Back to Libya: The more we know about the chaotic rebel movementthere, the less attractive an outright rebel victory seems. A betterLibya is probably one where Gaddafi is replaced by a coalitiongovernment that includes both the rebels and "reconcilable" figuresfrom the old regime who have broken from the dictator. Could thisoutcome have been achieved without military intervention? That's aquestion worth pondering.

Here's the troubling conclusion: If you want to maintain adictatorial regime, break the opposition in private torturechambers, not on the streets. Intimidate or block media coverage;police the Internet to prevent dissemination of images that willshock the conscience of the world. That's a cynical strategy, but itseems to work. Just look at Iran.