Western self-regard was on full display in a United States headline describing the Libya Contact Group confab in Istanbul over the weekend. It read: World leaders open Libya talks in Turkey.
China and Russia recognize the LCG as an effort by the proponents of military intervention in Libya to take the political bit in their teeth as well, in order to keep any further Libya discussions out of the UN Security Council where China and Russia - which were spectacularly burned by Resolution 1973 - would undoubtedly wield their veto power to the fullest to sidetrack the NATO/GCC-led campaign.
China has been relatively circumspect in its criticisms of the LCG, politely declining Turkey's invitation to join the Istanbul meeting - and thereby adding a further veneer of political legitimacy to the exercise - with the statement that it would skip the meeting "because the function and method of operation of this contact group need further study".
The Russians have been much more blunt. In May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared that it was the LCG, and not Muammar Gaddafi, that had a legitimacy problem:
