Ahmad 
Stephanie Khoury, deputy UN envoy to Libya, is struggling with time on the scene of the Libyan crisis, as her mission appears in drawing scenarios to reproduce the Libyan political scene.
The Libyan crisis has posed a real challenge for the current US administration during the past few months, as Washington began to lose part of its influence on the African continent, at a time when the conflict in Libya took a borderline situation with the emergence of the Libyan West within a state of competition and conflict, and lost the priority of providing a special model for the Libyan reality, as America’s allies in the West are unable to stabilize Western interests in general, and limit the emergence of Libyan forces more capable of controlling the joints of the crisis.
The appointment of Stephanie Khoury, which preceded the end of Pateley’s work, was a clear measure in the transformations of US policy, but the problem remained in how Stephanie Khoury dealt with the Libyan political scene and made the Libyan elections a station within the consolidation of a special Libyan reality.
Khoury’s effects in Sudan were evident in her work with the United Nations Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNTAMIS) in 2021, through the evolution of the battlefronts and the disintegration of existing alliances there, as her service in areas of tension ultimately led to pushing US interests into the depth of crises.
In Libya, Khoury began her work in a struggle against time, as it came with the resignation of Abdullah Batelli, the former UN envoy, and in light of a clear stumbling block in drawing a clear roadmap for the Libyan elections, as a deputy UN envoy, she uses the time between Batelli’s resignation and the appointment of a new envoy, and seeks to shape a scene within the Libyan crisis that makes any new envoy within the framework of the procedures set by Khoury for the path of a political solution in Libya.
Khoury does not lack experience in the region’s crises, but the challenge it faces is to reshape American policy and secure a network of complex interests that include energy resources and confront Russian and Turkish influence, as it draws a special political scenario that goes beyond the political process in its details, facilitating the holding of elections by the end of this year, and the realistic results it sets need to reproduce the crisis again so that the United States can benefit from the new repercussions of any political or even military escalation.
The crisis of western Libya:
Stephanie Khoury’s mission begins and ends in western Libya, as she is concerned with following up on the tasks of Stephanie Williams, who served as the head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (Acting) in March 2020, succeeding Ghassan Salamé, and worked to structure the Libyan political scene that continues until now, relying mainly on the presence of Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh within a political-military network in western Libya.
The persistence of political and social divisions resulted not only from the nature of the internal conflict, but also from policies that emerged with Dbeibeh that consider the contradictions between the parties as a political opportunity, through which influence can be established at the level of American policies specifically by dealing with partners who are already weak and possessed by a sharp state of competition.
Khoury does not need to deal with the internal division as a dangerous phenomenon, as it is conflicts within a single network governed mainly by a special political scenario, which made the Dbeibeh government a point of balance within all conflicts that suddenly appear even within the higher political circle, such as Dbeibeh ‘s disputes with the governor of the Bank of Libya, the great friend, where the contradictions of the scene seem to be part of a political mechanism through which Washington can access all parties.
Khoury’s difficult task will not be to unite the conflicting parties or at least reduce the intensity of competition between them, but to make her role as a mediator between them a decisive factor in influencing their political positions, or even their activism within the areas in which they are present.
Elections as a basic test:
Despite the statements of many Libyan politicians that Stephanie Khoury will not be able to achieve a breakthrough in the Libyan crisis, one of the scenarios that can deal with it is related to the Libyan elections, as it is a fundamental goal to establish a Libyan reality according to the American perception, as the new legitimacy that Khoury is looking for applies to creating reflections of the reality of division within the institutions that the elections will produce, stability in the end is the balance of international and regional influence inside Libya, which is not a new model for the US administration, but also represents a strategy In dealing with crises, where the state becomes governed by its decisions within this balance.
Khoury will need to work to create the appropriate conditions for holding “free and fair” elections according to international terminology, but the issue of freedom and integrity remains within the general form of the current balance, as elections will reflect the reality of competition and division, and the issue of international support will remain the element that governs the work of Libyan institutions.
The US administration realizes that the reality of international influence in Libya makes Stephanie Khoury’s freedom to deal with the elements of the crisis limited, but the issue of elections is the most flexible for all parties, as the final result is not the emergence of a single ruling institution between East and West, but rather making the electoral process a state of “political embarrassment” for some parties, or even for foreign influence, even if it is an ally of the United States, such as Italian and French influences, as reducing foreign interference has become the task of elections that will produce “legitimacy” with international dependencies. Governed by the power of American influence in Tripoli.
Khoury’s last scenario is related to managing expectations, whether for Libyans or even for the international community, as what seems to be obstacles in the political process can be transformed into “political realism”, by drawing expectations to the extent possible in light of the Libyan circumstance, and this is what pushes Libyan politicians not to expect breakthroughs that Khoury could make within the political scene.
Khoury’s main task is to devote American strategies in the face of other perceptions on the table, especially the Russian mechanism that deals with the crisis within the context of African cooperation, and the efforts of the United Nations remain in dealing with lost time until a new envoy is appointed, and Stephanie returns as a deputy and not in the position of developing strategies and solutions.
Written by Mazen Bilal
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