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Wayne White was a long-time MEI scholar and a policy expert with Washington’s Middle East Policy Council. He was formerly the deputy director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s Office of Analysis for the Near East and South Asia (INR/NESA) and senior regional analyst. He also served as principal Iraq analyst and head of INR/NESA’s Iraq team.
White was chief of INR’s Maghreb, Arabian Peninsula, Iran and Iraq division and State Department representative to NATO Middle East working groups. He served as the State Department’s intelligence briefer on Iran and Iraq for the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) and Jordanian cabinet-level officials, and on Iraq, Iran, and Syria for senior Israeli defense and military officials. He was a Political Officer at the US Interests Section in Baghdad, US Sinai Field Mission peacekeeper, and in various capacities as an Embassy Officer in Niger during the Sahel Drought Emergency.
*This Commentary first appeared on neimanwatchdog.org on July 8, 2011
While political debate still roils over the legality of the American role in Libya, other questions have grown more pressing. Those questions include whether the European side of the NATO operation can be sustained and whether the Libyan opposition truly has the ability to achieve their goal of taking down the regime of Muammar Qaddhafi & Co.
These issues are critical for those favoring US participation in NATO operations as well as those opposed.
Developments in Syria have been growing more disturbing. The Assad regime seems to be reacting to the unrest as if it believes it can contain it with much the same approach used against the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood roughly 30 years ago, particularly during 1980-1982. Some have credited Tehran with coaching Damascus on how to contain its current popular challenge.
It now appears that the US finally has gotten serious about doing something meaningful to assist opposition forces in Libya. Exaggerated fears and an insufficient grasp of the adverse consequences of not taking such action previously paralyzed US (and most European) policymakers with respect to even an eastern no-fly zone, let alone more robust measures. Meanwhile, what is left of the organized Libyan opposition is increasingly hard-pressed.
