SEALed and Delivered in Libya

SEALed and Delivered in Libya:

Last week, Jathran's forces finally
made good on that threat: they used one of the oil terminals under their
control to fill up a North
Korean-flagged tanker called the Morning
Glory. (For the record, North Korea has since denied having anything to do
with the ship.) The tanker then sailed out into the Mediterranean, defying warnings
from the central government that it would deploy its naval forces to block the ship
from leaving the port. No such action was forthcoming, of course. The security
forces of current Libyan government can't even maintain control over its own
capital, much less over the country's coastal waters.




Had the story ended there, the
result would have been an unmitigated disaster for the government. Tripoli's
impotence and dysfunction would have graphically exposed for all the world to
see. The floodgates for the wholesale looting of Libya's oil resources would have
opened. The forces of anarchy would have cheered. (It's worth noting that a
prime minister has already lost
his job for even allowing the tanker to load in the first place.) But
that's when Washington stepped in.