Ahmad 
Since the 1973 UN Security Council Resolution imposing a no-fly zone on Libya under the pretext of protecting civilians through “all necessary measures”, and the complexities of the Libyan scene are accumulating, especially after the collapse of the political system and state institutions, the decision that sparked a wide debate about external interference in Libyan affairs came at the request of the Arab League, and was done under the pretext of humanitarian intervention to stop the killing of civilians by the Gaddafi regime according to the text of the Arab League’s request, but all military operations carried out by NATO NATO has not been able to create new stability, or even to redraw Western interests differently.
In practice, the post-Gaddafi phase pushed Western interests in different directions, as Libya has enormous economic resources with a distinctive geographical location, and the emergence of new parties, most notably political Islam and the military current, led to the creation of a conflict of interest between political leaders, whether in eastern or western Libya, with international parties, which turned the military intervention by NATO into an attempt to draw roles again, but the Western handling of the Libyan issue is inseparable from the contradictions of regional roles that arose as a result of the military intervention. This motivated the international parties to provide support to the various conflicting parties in the Libyan conflict, especially military support, which perpetuated a state of internal imbalance of power, in addition to the attempt of some external parties to spoil the peace process.
Washington and “Back Support”
What surfaces is the regional support for the conflicting Libyan parties, although Libya is still under the international arms embargo, but this did not prevent external countries from providing their allies with military equipment, as the Egyptian-Libyan border formed a crossing for financing Haftar’s forces through military equipment coming from the UAE, and on the other hand, Turkey provided military funding to the fighters of Operation Libya Dawn, and with the tilt of the scales for Haftar’s forces in the Tripoli war, Turkey intervened to restore the balance of power between the parties through an agreement Military cooperation, and the provision of equipment to the Government of National Accord, and this is certainly done with the knowledge of decision-making capitals in the West, as external intervention in the case of Libya has shifted from a direct military form towards new areas.
For Europe, the files of irregular migration, and the fight against groups described as terrorism that take the Sahel and Sahara as the scene of their activity, have become a new motive for intervention, which has turned from an economic file to a basic security and humanitarian file in the agendas of European countries, as Western powers encouraged by ignoring or suggesting acceptance, regional roles to tamper with Libya’s stability, as the US administration preferred to deal “from behind” with this file, as it supported the efforts of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya and the mediation it conducts between Libyans, which led to the signing of A political agreement in the Moroccan city of Skhirat on December 17, 2015, so it used “excessive realism” without trying to intervene, which made its strategy depend on the context in which events take place, more than on solid determinants that go towards defining a specific goal, as it did not draw a goal related to the stability of Libya, or the establishment of a state with certain characteristics, as much as it developed a set of caveats related mainly to the following points:
- Ensure that oil flows to the international market and does not leak to entities deemed hostile by Washington, which is reflected in the intervention of a US battleship to arrest a North Korean-flagged ship that tried to transport an oil cargo in March 2014.
- Libya should not become a center of attraction, armament, and financing for organizations that Washington puts on terrorist lists, such as ISIS and al-Qaeda. This was reflected in the support for military operations against the Islamic State in Sirte, in which US aviation participated very effectively.
- Helping Washington’s European allies, especially Italy, with fears of worsening the flow of migrants, which approached 200,000 in 2016.
Contradictions of the European role
It is difficult to talk about a unified strategy for the European Union countries in Libya, as there is a lack of harmony in European policies and what is happening conveys a sharp competition between France and Italy, while British hesitation appears regarding any position or intervention, while Germany has an approach that is compatible with the Italian position, and the conflict in European positions can be understood through policies that are clear according to the following points:
- In 2015, the French newspaper “Le Monde” revealed the presence of French forces fighting alongside Haftar’s forces in Benghazi, which was reinforced by France’s recognition of the killing of soldiers there a few months later, and the other side is the security of the Sahara region, in which major French companies (Total and Areva) are active in search of gold, uranium and oil, and their intervention in Libya. It is an extension of its 2013 military campaign against armed groups in northern Mali and is one of the fruits of its alliance with the UAE and Egypt.
- Italy has its biggest interests in Libya, as it depends on the flow of oil and gas, which constitute more than 70% of its energy needs, and as a result of its old interests in Libya, its strategy is based on the rule of “neither victor nor defeat” in the current conflict, so it supported the Skhirat Agreement and the government emanating from it, and was able to absorb all the military, political and security components present in the west and center, and able to join the legitimacy of the political agreement, and seeks to obtain greater support for its efforts from the US administration, and does not hide its concern about the role Egypt and the UAE, which it considers destabilizing in Libya. In this context, it can be partially understood that its relations with Egypt have been strained in the past two years.
The support for the political process, which has been stalled since 2020, is not due to the Libyan parties themselves, but to the international and regional bases that are available to them through the United States’ attempt to suggest that it is distracted from the Libyan issue in favor of the United Nations, at a time when it deals with European policies from the angle of waiting for the “exhaustion” process imposed by security tensions in Libya.
Written by Mazen Bilal