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Book review: Toppling Qaddafi: Libya And The Limits Of Liberal Intervention by Christopher Chivvis
A new book arguing the case for the imperialist overthrow of president Gadaffi nevertheless provides telling insights into the West’s policies of ‘liberal intervention’ in Libya and beyond, says CARLOS MARTINEZ
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While a few books have been written about the 2011 Libya war from a critical, anti-imperialist perspective, the most important being Cynthia McKinney’s The Illegal War On Libya and Maximilian Forte’s Slouching Towards Sirte, Toppling Qaddafi is the first attempt by a mainstream Western political scientist to provide a retrospective justification for the war.
Its author Christopher Chivvis works at a US government-funded think tank the Rand Corporation and his book is, as you might expect, unashamedly pro-imperialist in presenting a more-or-less official narrative.
As such it should be read critically. Yet it does provide some important insights into the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to the war as well as revealing the full extent of Nato’s role in it.
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