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Plan B for
Libya
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The September 20 deadline for establishing a unity government in
war-torn Libya ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting came and went, and
reconciliation between Libya's internationally recognized parliament based
in Tobruk and the rival leadership, the new General National Congress
(GNC), in Tripoli, was nowhere on the horizon. Anyone who is surprised by
this just hasn't been paying attention.
Reuniting the Libyan militias has been the West's only endgame for Libya
since the oil-rich country slid into a civil war following the 2011 removal
of Muammar Qaddafi by a select coalition of NATO countries led by Britain,
France, and the United States. But this outcome does not seem to be getting
any closer. Indeed, things have gotten much worse.
During the 12 months in which the UN Special Envoy for Libya, Spanish
Diplomat Bernadino Leon, labored to hammer out a deal, the country became a
destination for ISIS fighters taking advantage of the chaos on the ground.
The fact that a UN arms embargo prevents weapons transfers to either the
Tobruk or Tripoli governments means that ISIS fighters have a distinct
advantage: Where two fight, a third may win out. In June, ISIS temporarily
took over the city of Sirte on the coast of the Mediterranean, and several
days ago a group of their suicide terrorists attacked Libya's international
airport in Tripoli, killing three people.
The only realistic solution is the
division of Libya into two independent national entities.
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To make matters worse, the lack of functioning government and border
controls had enabled many thousands of migrants from North and Sub-Saharan
Africa to cross the Mediterranean into Europe, exacerbating Europe's
migrant crisis.
Neither the continuation of ISIS's expansion in Libya nor the
persistence of the flow of African migrants are options the U.S. government
and those of the European Union can tolerate. It is time to thank Leon for
his noble efforts and recognize the reality that the only realistic
solution one can aspire to at the moment is the division of Libya into two
independent national entities.
Following Leon's maneuvering in Libya over the past year, one always got
the false impression that a deal to stabilize the country was just around
the corner. A draft proposal on forming a national unity government would
be put forth; the two sides would stall in approving it; they would then
suggest amendments which, in turn, would get rejected; and public protests
would then lead the rival factions to back down. And so it went, and so it
goes. The appearance of progress when in fact there is none has served as
eyewash as Libya has fallen ever deeper into chaos—and as the flow of
migrants through Libya to Europe intensifies.
The failure of the Leon doctrine is not a testament to his
less-than-stellar mediation skills but rather a reflection of a far deeper
reality: the inability of the rival factions to accept the concept of
shared governance over the country. Indeed, they don't even genuinely
recognize the notion that Libya is a country.
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Spanish
Diplomat Bernadino Leon has been unable to bring rival factions to accept
the concept of shared governance over Libya.
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What has complicated the West's efforts to reunite Libya is the
senseless characterization of the Tripoli government as
"Islamist." In our day and age there is no better way to
delegitimize a group than to label it as Islamist. This is exactly what
happened to the GNC. While the Tobruk government enjoyed broad
international recognition and free access to international forums, only
Turkey and Qatar recognize the Tripoli government, and its leaders cannot
even travel abroad freely. But the notion that Tripoli is more Islamist
than the other groups vying for control over Libya—not the least other
groups and regimes throughout the Middle East that the West is happy to
embrace—is bogus. When it comes to Islamist tendencies, all tribes are more
or less cut from the same cloth. By not recognizing those who are in
command of most of the country's institutions and strategic
assets—paradoxically, the salaries of Libya's diplomatic staff representing
the Tobruk government all over the world are drawn from the coffers in
Tripoli—and who also contributed their fair share to Qaddafi's removal, the
West is undermining any chance for stabilization. Equally delusional is the
idea toyed with by some American and European operatives of installing a
Western backed Libyan expat who would miraculously rally the tribes behind
him. Wasn't the Ahmed Chalabi mirage in Iraq enough?
Now, when the deadline for reunification is passed, it is time to
consider a Plan B for Libya. This plan should draw from the country's
history. Back in the early 20thcentury the territory of today's
Libya was split into three self-governing regions: Cyrenaica, which was
located in eastern Libya, more or less in the region controlled today by
the Tobruk government, and Tripolitania, situated today in some of the area
controlled by the GNC. The third was Fezzan, which was and still is an
inhospitable desert region in the southwest sparsely populated by Arab and
Berber tribes. Some version of this arrangement, which lasted until 1963
during the reign of King Idris I, should be considered today.
Sometimes a divided country is
better than a broken and hopeless one.
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Washington and Brussels should first recognize the Tripoli government
and treat it as a legitimate party. They should then work to hammer out an
agreement with the factions to form an orderly division of Libya into two
separate entities, under the condition that these two will work—separately
and jointly—to combat the spread of ISIS in North Africa. They also need to
cooperate in active measures to create a virtual wall along Libya's
coastline to thwart additional migration into Europe. To this end the
Libyan navy and coast guard should be reconstituted, and the arms embargo
should be gradually lifted to allow security forces to effectively take on
ISIS.
In his UN speech this past week, President Obama boasted of America's
achievement in Libya. But he admitted, "Our coalition could have, and
should have, done more to fill a vacuum left behind." And then he
somewhat incongruously promised, "In such efforts, the United States
will always do our part." Thinking again on how to fill the vacuum,
Obama should take note of a 2006 proposal by the senior Democrat on the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee—namely, his Vice President, Joe Biden.
Then-Senator Biden proposed that Iraq be divided into three separate
regions—Kurdish, Shi'a, and Sunni. At the time the U.S. government and its
allies were still consumed by dreams of forming a democratic heaven on the
Tigris, and the idea was dismissed. A decade later it no longer sounds so
bizarre. Let us hope that, when it comes to Libya, it will take the West
less time to recognize that sometimes a divided country is better than a
broken and hopeless one.
Gal Luft is co-director of the
Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and a fellow
at the Middle East Forum.
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