THE HAGUE, Netherlands, March 8 (UPI) -- The European community would be wise to focus policies on a world divided largely between open and closed societies, Britain's deputy prime minister said.
The international community expressed a near-unanimous decision to send NATO forces into Libya last year to protect civilians from attacks by forces loyal to Moammar Gadhafi.
More than a year later, however, the world is divided over the best way to address the conflict in Syria.
British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg told a delegation at The Hague there is a profound and ongoing societal upheaval in North African and the Middle East.
"(It's) a clash between the forces of freedom on the one hand and powerful vested interests on the other," he said.
He said the conflict in Libya last year proved that the European community can't depend exclusively on the United States to help protect regional interests. The world, said Clegg, is no longer divided along traditional geopolitical lines but into societies that are open and those that are closed.
"And just as the United States is redefining its place in the world, we Europeans should be smart about our position too," he said.
