Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I was in South Africa last week. We met with probably more than 40 MPs, plus we had the benefit of the president's views on Libya. I can say with some assurance that their views are not our views. I just want to put that on the table, because as they see it—as the African Union sees it, I think—NATO has gone way past its mandate. It has effectively gone from protecting civilians to effecting a regime change. And they're not overly happy about it. They think the African Union and the Arab League should be far more engaged in this process. It is, after all, their neighbourhood.
If you had any other confirmation of their views, it was, if you will, the triumphalism of Sarkozy and Cameron, which in their view was not helpful. It reminds others of Mr. Bush's triumphalism, which extended the Iraq war another four years.
The issue is whether we are effectively being asked to supervise a low-grade civil war. This is a tribal society. It's very complicated. And the media reports there's a certain lack of enthusiasm on the part of the rebels to engage in the really tough fighting going on where Gadhafi's forces are. If you're looking at it as a Gadhafi-force person, you're saying, “Well, I have nothing to lose. So I'm going to fight, and I'm going to fight to the bitter end.”
Ambassador, you said we had built up some goodwill. Madame, I'm prepared to buy that. What is the plan here? We may have squandered some goodwill in the African Union. We may have squandered some goodwill in the Arab League. We certainly have spent materiel and resources.
So it's not clear to me what exactly we're asking for in the extension of the mandate. Be far more clear as to how we're going to engage the African Union, the Arab League, the tribal factionalism, and the various competing interests. And how are we going to be, effectively, not supervising a low-grade civil war that will go on and on and continue to engage us for months and months?