Hommam Al Nassim 
The phone conversation between Muammar Gaddafi and Tony Blair in February 2011 is an event with a geostrategic dimension, as it reflects the balance of international powers and their orientations towards the Middle East and North Africa region.
The telephone conversation presented the nature of the clash in the concepts in which the two parties see the form and repercussions of the Libyan event. Although Libya was not the beginning of what was called the “Arab Spring,” as Egypt and Tunisia preceded it, it formed a fulcrum for the re-imposition of force in international relations, based on the Security Council resolution. No. 1973 dated March 17, 2011, which called for imposing a no-fly zone over Libya and taking “all necessary measures” to protect civilians and civilian areas threatened by attack, and although Blair’s conversation with Gaddafi took place less than a month before the resolution was issued (February 25, 2011), But it was within the international climate that wanted to deal with the repercussions of the Libyan events to bring about geostrategic transformations in the international system.
During the conversation, Blair reflected the direct vision of ending the Libyan event through Gaddafi stepping down, a solution that attempts not to look at the political complexities in North Africa in general and does not look for the “next day” of the step-down process, while Gaddafi saw an “international game” in all the developments his country is going through. He denied that the protests carried with them a pattern that went beyond any peaceful movement and were accompanied by a broad media campaign that did not carry clear political dimensions in its content, but rather depicted the features of a state of extremism that appeared publicly and quickly and developed to take on declared “jihadist” dimensions.
“Blair” and the ambiguous mediation:
Tony Blair was not a typical British Prime Minister, as he was a strong supporter of humanitarian intervention. He participated in NATO efforts in Kosovo in 1999, then supported the war in Iraq in 2003, and resigned in 2007 due to the political failures that accompanied him, but despite this He continued his political and diplomatic work as a special envoy to the International Quartet for Middle East Peace, and this was the motivation behind his contact with Muammar Gaddafi.
In practice, Tony Blair was Prime Minister in Britain during the critical period that ultimately led to the end of the sanctions on Libya after the “Lockerbie” crisis, and he knows through the political experience of the stages of his time as Prime Minister the nature of the balance that the Libyan President has established since he assumed power on September 1, 2018. 1969, and the demands that he placed before Gaddafi attempt to overcome all Libyan considerations, and this matter is not absurd. Tony Blair certainly knew the danger of manipulating the Libyan balance, and the possibility of igniting North Africa, especially since Egypt was experiencing turmoil after the removal of President Hosni Mubarak, as well as Tunisia. And Sudan as well, but what Blair did not expect was that the conflict in Libya would become a real front that would be difficult for the West to deal with, as is happening today.
Dimensions of conversation:
The phone conversation was not the “last chance” according to the Western description, but rather a waste of every possibility that would spare Libya a devastating war and create a belt of chaos along North Africa. The conversation that took place can be read according to data that has become clear today and reveals the political formation that governed the Western vision in general. When you intervene militarily in Libya, the conversation can be understood according to the following points:
- The Western preconception of what is happening in Libya, as Blair stressed the need to stop the violence and bloodshed in Libya and urged Gaddafi to send a message to the people to stop combat operations, but the Libyan president not only denied the issue of fighting, but also invited Blair to visit Libya.
With this perception, Blair was giving political cover to the media and political campaigns that accompanied the Libyan event. Relying on the legitimacy of the protests and giving them a humanitarian dimension was not only the justification for his request for Gaddafi to step down, but also to give the prevailing state of unrest a wider scope for action, as it is an official recognition that it has legitimacy in addition to the threat of “ “The stick of power” that will support the existing “movement.”
- Blair’s call for Gaddafi to step down from power and search for a safe place was not just the beginning of a peaceful solution to the crisis, as he put it during the call, but rather “turning a political page” that exhausted the West in general through Gaddafi’s policies, which remained a confrontational phenomenon and intertwined with the international conflict over North Africa.
Muammar Gaddafi knew from his relations with Europe and the United States over four decades the solid “Libyan power” on the international stage, regardless of his positions on Gaddafi’s policies, but in the end, he dealt with international politics using the strength of the Libyan economy in the first place and did not accuse Western countries of planning a conspiracy. New colonialism against Libya in an absurd way. He dealt with the fluctuations of Western policies, and his threat to arm the Libyan people to defend the country was the card he always used in his clash with Western policies.
- Blair’s fears of escalating violence were not just a possibility, but rather a path that was ultimately supported by the military intervention process. As for Gaddafi, he warned of regional chaos and not just the outbreak of war in Libya. This was a final bet put forward by the Libyan president to redraw Libya’s future away from foreign interference.
Blair, in his attempts to persuade Gaddafi to step down, stressed that the West wanted to resolve the crisis peacefully and that stepping down would provide an opportunity for a peaceful change process in Libya, ignoring all his experience in “peaceful solutions” that were collapsing, and in particular his role as a mediator in the international Quartet to resolve the Palestinian issue. Thus, Gaddafi’s expectations were The future of Libya and the region is more realistic, and is based on preserving Libyan sovereignty in the first place to ensure stability, and his vision that Western intervention will lead to chaos and exploitation by extremist armed groups, is what actually happened, and was in contradiction with the American desire to make Libya a model of violent transformation that could Moving him to other places, and Blair’s insistence on a “transitional period” was nothing but a political tactic.
After the Libyan chaos
Issues related to the Blair-Gaddafi conversation continue to interact and put British-Libyan relations in a new scene with the son of President Muammar Gaddafi. The legal team representing Saif al-Islam Gaddafi accused the United Kingdom of continuing to interfere in the internal affairs of Libya and of seeking to exclude Saif al-Islam from the political process in the country. Politics Britain and the West in general are working to deal with the Libyan crisis by maintaining a level of escalation. In a way that makes stability a complex situation.
Supporters of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi rely on the chronology that accompanied the Libyan event. The clear British intervention and attempts to undermine Saif al-Islam’s participation in the upcoming presidential elections are part of the liquidation of Libya’s political legacy and are also part of the settling of accounts that place before the British government essential tasks in excluding any A factor that disrupts the current forms of chaos.
The Western military intervention in Libya, which began a few weeks after this conversation, led to the fall of Gaddafi’s regime but did not achieve the desired stability. Libya entered into a spiral of chaos and internal conflicts. Armed groups spread in the country, taking advantage of the security vacuum and moving beyond the Libyan borders, extending To include the entire region, extremist groups exploited the chaos to expand and gain influence, which led to an escalation of violence in countries such as Mali, Niger, and Chad. The chaos in Libya also contributed to enhancing illegal immigration flows to Europe and added another dimension to the humanitarian and political crisis.
Written by Mazen Bilal
Tunisian Minister of Defense inspects military facilities in the capital