Although the Islamic
State (ISIS) was driven from its main areas of control in Libya last
year and oil production has rebounded to a three-year high, Libya is
more polarized and fragmented than ever. The UN-backed
Government of National Accord (
GNA) in Tripoli
is failing in its basic
functions and confronts an existential challenge from an eastern faction
led by General Khalifa Hifter and backed by Egypt, UAE, and, increasingly, Russia. In addition, the economy is veering
toward collapse, and jihadist militancy could still find purchase in
the country’s chaos.
Now it is the time for careful and robust
American diplomatic leadership.
The Trump administration must first
school itself in the complexities of Libyan politics, shunning the easy
and incorrect categorizations of “Islamist” and “secular” or
“nationalist.” It must avoid viewing the country solely through a
counterterrorism lens and sub-contracting its Libya policy to regional
states, especially Egypt, whose partisan and securitized approach will
produce more division and radicalization. Punting the Libya issue to
Europe is also a non-starter; without American backing, a European role
will lack credibility, inviting Russia to be the key power broker.
Backing one side in Libya’s conflicts, as some regional leaders are
seeking to persuade the US to do, would trigger a major
escalation and a long civil war.
AFTER ISIS
Their
operations might have been overshadowed by campaigns in Mosul and
eastern Syria, but over the past year, Libyan forces, backed by American
airpower and Western special operations, scored a hard-won victory
against the ISIS stronghold in the central city of Sirte. Elsewhere
across the country, Libyans ejected ISIS cells and fighters from Derna
and Benghazi in the east, from Tripoli, and from the town of Sabratha
near the Tunisian border. Today, ISIS is no longer a territorial force
in Libya in any meaningful sense. That said, its demise presents a
number of dangers.
First, remnants of ISIS could still reconstitute themselves and sow
trouble. Already, fighters have fled to the desert valleys south of
Sirte, where they’ve tried to regroup in small encampments like the one
the United States bombed on January 18 of this year. The group is said
to have a residual presence around the Western town of Sabratha, a hub
for Tunisian jihadists, and its clandestine cells are still capable of
attacking in and around the capital. Beyond these specific
threats, Libya remains an attractive host to jihadism, whether from
ISIS, al Qaeda, or some new variant. The conditions are ripe: a long
legacy of jihad, economic despair, a governance vacuum, and worsening
polarization that could leave some communities feeling as if they have
no recourse but violence. The networks and infrastructure of existing
jihadist groups could easily give way to new mutations, much as ISIS
co-opted or peeled away Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi, Sabratha, and
Sirte. Most importantly, jihadism thrives on conflict; ISIS expanded
during Libya’s last round of factional fighting starting in mid-2014,
inserting itself in the fissures wrought by the conflict between the
so-called Dawn and Dignity camps.
Western diplomats had hoped that
fighting ISIS could serve as a springboard for political unity among
these warring camps. In fact, the opposite has happened.
Campaigns
against ISIS were pell-mell and carried out by disparate and hostile
militias without any unifying authority. For example, militias from the
powerful city of Misrata that defeated ISIS in Sirte are only loosely
tethered to the GNA in Tripoli—and many in their ranks fiercely oppose
it. Now that ISIS is gone, Sirte faces enormous challenges of
reconstruction and reconciliation. Some tribes in Sirte, such as the
Qadhadhafa and Warfalla, see the Misratan-led victory as less of a
liberation and more of a conquest—it was their grievances against
Misratan domination that gave ISIS an opening in the first place.
Elsewhere
in Libya, there are other signs of looming conflict. In Benghazi,
Hafter’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) has largely defeated
ISIS and other jihadist groups, but in the process, it severely ruptured
the city’s social fabric, displacing thousands and unleashing
exclusionary forces such as tribalism and ultraconservative Salafism.
Evicted Islamists are likely to continue the fight, whether through
conventional attacks from outside the city or terrorism inside it.
Farther to the east, Hifter’s forces are laying siege to Derna, accusing
the Islamists there that defeated ISIS of belonging to al Qaeda.
Most
ominously, though, the campaign against ISIS has helped embolden Hafter
and his supporters to make a renewed push for national domination, with
worrisome threats to bring the war to the capital, Tripoli. The risk of
renewed conflict makes the need for American diplomatic leadership all
the more urgent; having lent its military muscle to help vanquish ISIS,
Washington cannot leave Libya to its own devices.
CIVIL WAR
The
political safeguards that could have prevented renewed fighting have
eroded over the past year. The GNA’s domestic support base has steadily
narrowed; its international backers have forfeited much of their
credibility because of their inability to dissuade regional states and
Russia from supporting the GNA’s adversaries. Most importantly, since
the agreement to form the GNA was reached in December 2015, the balance
of forces has changed, with Hafter consolidating his power in the East.
The
GNA failed miserably in a gamble to weaken Hafter by backing rival
eastern figures. Since early 2016, Hafter has gradually expelled or
silenced former opponents among the eastern forces that are loosely
aligned with him. To cement his authority, he empowered armed Salafi
groups, reinstated many former elements of former leader Muammar al
Qaddafi’s intelligence services, and appointed military governors to
replace elected municipal councils. In September, after months of
working to coopt tribal leaders and military figures, he took over
eastern Libya’s biggest oil export terminals without significant
military action. This dealt a heavy blow to the GNA and gained Hifter
substantial popularity across the country, as his forces refrained from
shutting down the ports to strong-arm the GNA.
Having secured his
hold over the east, Hafter is now stepping up efforts to expand his
dominion. In the south, LNA-affiliated units are relatively weak but
have begun to act more aggressively. Near Sirte, Hafter has deployed
officers and militiamen drawn from the city’s tribes. In an eventual
confrontation with Misratan forces in the city, he could likely count on
support from a powerful Salafi brigade that had fought with the
Misratans against ISIS.
Most worryingly, Hafter and his close associates frequently announce
that they will soon begin what they call the “liberation” of Tripoli.
This notion is far-fetched, as the LNA has few local affiliates around
the capital, and its eastern troops are unlikely to fight in the west.
But Hifter does not need to actually invade the capital to gain power.
All he needs to do is drive a wedge between militias in and around the
capital and strike alliances with some of them. This seems to be his
precise strategy: by naming several of Tripoli’s militias as forces he
could work with, Hifter has stoked tensions and contributed to an uptick
in violence in the capital. Hafter probably calculates that he stands
to benefit from chaos in Tripoli, which would strengthen his claim that
only the LNA can impose stability.In the face of Hifter’s
advances, the GNA is crumbling. Since it arrived in Tripoli in March
2016, the GNA has failed to establish its authority even in the capital,
let alone elsewhere. A rival government continues to command the
loyalty of some militias in Tripoli, and a coalition of Misratan-led
militias battle-hardened by combat in Sirte recently arrived in the
capital to challenge the GNA’s allies. Meanwhile, those militias
nominally supporting the GNA have fueled conflicts by encroaching on the
turf of neighborhood rivals. Efforts to establish a UN-backed
presidential guard that would protect GNA institutions have been
extremely slow in materializing. Even if such a force were formed, it
would still face stiff opposition from better-armed militias, causing
further violence in the capital.
For ordinary Libyans, the GNA’s
ineffectiveness is most clearly seen in the country’s worsening economic
crisis and long power cuts. Although several of its own members have
boycotted the GNA from the beginning or resigned over the past year,
even its staunchest supporters are now willing to renegotiate the
agreement on which the GNA is based.
A recent flurry of
backchannel talks reflects the widespread recognition that the current
political setup is failing. There is now an unprecedented willingness to
reach a compromise on almost all sides of the conflict—except that of
Hifter. Leading Misratan figures have reached out to the general in
recent months to explore his readiness to strike a deal, even offering
to integrate him into a unified military structure at his current
position, which is superior to that of the Chief of Staff. So far, their
efforts have been in vain. In meetings with Western diplomats, Hifter
has bluntly stated his intention to rule Libya and rebuffed overtures
for negotiations.
Hifter’s uncompromising stance is not only
linked to the support he receives from Egypt, the UAE, and Russia but
also to expectations that the Trump administration would back Egypt’s
position on Libya or support Hifter by lifting the UN arms embargo and
directing closer American intelligence and military support to his LNA
forces. Egyptian and Russian officials, in turn, are suggesting to
Libyan and Western interlocutors that they could induce Hifter to strike
a deal. But even more than their willingness, their ability to do so is
highly doubtful. In addition to Egypt and Russia, Algeria and Tunisia
are also proposing their services as mediators, stepping into the void
left by the UN’s faltering efforts.
FRESH APPROACH
Sticking
to the mantra of supporting the GNA, as Western governments have done
over the past year, is no longer a viable option. But neither is the
seemingly easy solution of backing a military strongman such as Hafter.
Renewed efforts at brokering a political deal within a new negotiating
framework offer the most promising path forward.
Hifter has no
realistic prospect of stabilizing Libya through military rule. His
Libyan National Army is neither national nor an army. Even in the east,
the bulk of the LNA’s forces are drawn from civilian fighters—militias
of varying backgrounds that are increasingly disguised as formal army
units. In the west and south, the LNA units have a distinctly tribal
composition, provoking suspicion among neighboring communities that view
them as little more than tribal militias.
The idea
that Hifter’s forces could take over Tripoli and rebuild the Libyan
state is thus highly implausible. Indeed, encouraging Hafter to expand
his reach toward Tripoli risks triggering a war over the capital that
could drag on for years. With a third of the country’s population living
in the greater Tripoli area, such a conflict could cause displacement
and humanitarian suffering on a scale not seen to date in Libya. It
would also offer opportunities for jihadist mobilization. Non-Islamist
armed groups in Tripoli would join forces with Islamist-leaning fighters
to confront Hafter. As in the case of Benghazi, the most extreme and
irreconcilable elements would invariably rise to the fore.
Even
if Hafter were able to establish control over Tripoli, his rule would
cause more, not less, radicalization. Like Egypt’s al-Sisi, Hafter makes
no distinction between ISIS, al Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood
(whose Libyan branch has supported the GNA’s formation). His stated goal
of killing, jailing, or exiling Islamists of all types risks provoking
moderate, pro-state Islamists into going underground and allying
themselves with radical jihadists. Meanwhile, doctrinaire Salafis of the
tendency promoted by Hafter—who preach absolute loyalty to a sitting
ruler—would further extend their influence, and enforce their harsh
interpretation of Sharia law more widely.
In sum,
unification through military action is not realistic in Libya. Instead, USA, in conjunction with regional states, should support a
renewed push for a political settlement. This requires, first,
deterring any moves toward military escalation by exerting credible
pressure on the warring parties, to include the threat of sanctions and
exclusion from any future security assistance. Second, it requires
rebuilding the negotiating architecture, with regional states taking the
lead. The challenge will be brokering a common platform for dialogue
among states with vested interests in Libya. How to deal with an
increasingly assertive Russia will pose a particular difficulty. Recent
initiatives by regional states should be encouraged, but they need to be
transferred into a more coherent framework. A small group of states,
closely coordinating with each other, could act as mediators and,
eventually, witnesses and guarantors to an agreement.
