Addressing the United Nations Security Council in New York on December 19, Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Al-Dairi said that the terrorists behind Libya Dawn want to control oil resources and to finance terrorism worldwide. His comment, which is in fact true, illuminates the deep morally corrupt policies of the West and the UN.
According to Groucho Marx, “politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies”. That applies particularly to current Western policy towards Libya.
What in fact is the problem in a nutshell in Libya?
It’s the United Nations Support Mission (UNSMIL) in Libya, with its unrealistic ambitions and inept negotiator, UN envoy Bernardino Leon, which is the problem. The long-promised Ghademis 2 talks Leon heralded weeks ago still have yet to be convened.
UNSMIL’s main advocates are located in the United Nations and in Whitehall, in London, but also include a number of naive, misguided international diplomats living in neighbouring countries to Libya who, through UNSMIL, wants to make a deal with Libya Dawn, which is a coalition of terrorists, extremists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood who occupy Tripoli by force and invented their own government.
UNSMIL thinks that by negotiating with such extremists, it won’t prolong Libya’s agony. Nonsense, utter nonsense.
To bring UNSMIL’s perfidy more into focus, let’s consider the perception on the ground in Libya. Perception is everything and the perception of ordinary Libyans is that the UN and Britain, in particular, are supporting Islamists in Libya, specifically ‘acceptable elements’ of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Supporting UNSMIL in this mockery is Prime Minister David Cameron’s special envoy for Libya, Jonathan Powell. Recently, Powell published an ill-timed book, Talking with Terrorists. Given the emergence of a new kind of hyper-terrorism, with its Caliphate-building in the 21st century, and not unexpectedly in line with his book, Powell, totally out of step with the times, wants to enter negotiations with this new generation of terrorists like the totally amoral Daesh (known by some as the Islamic State or ISIS).
The West contrasts Malta’s stance on Libya
This assertion is silly.
If those Western countries believe in the UNSMIL approach, such countries should move their missions back to Tripoli. Muslim Brotherhood supporters Turkey and Qatar will no doubt help them get settled.
Clearly, most people agree that the two ambassadors, Michael Aron and Deborah Jones, from the UK and America, respectively, are ineffectual and more importantly are disliked by all sides in Libya. These Western officials and their staffs presumably hope that removing Khalifa Haftar, who wants to defeat terrorism and the extremist Libya Dawn, could give a push to a resumption of political talks between warring sides.
Do these diplomats, including their masters, really understand the full spectrum of the battle for Libya?
In addition, the National Oil Company is sacrosanct. The dithering of UN and Western policies have directly led to Libya Dawn’s attacks on Libyan ports to impact Libya’s most important asset: oil.
The Islamists’ attacks on other locations are also one of the tactics that Libya Dawn is using to attempt to weaken the army, destabilise the legitimate government and, in this new development, disrupt the lifeblood of the country: oil.
How can UNSMIL continue a dialogue with Libya Dawn under these circumstances? This policy goes to the heart of the fact that Haftar’s forces are fighting terrorists and Libya Dawn to, among other objectives, protect Libya’s oil. Rightly, Libya’s air force attacked Libya Dawn, and Prime Minister Abdullah al Thinni has begun the process of cutting off overseas assets from the Libyan Central Bank to halt funding streams to Libya Dawn’s supporters and setting up a new payment system. Al Thinni and Haftar are, in fact, becoming heroes and champions of Libyan democratic values, something the West should laud.
The West contrasts Malta’s stance on Libya. The fact that, so far, Malta has consistently been morally right and, even more importantly, legally correct, is significant. That Malta serves as a critical player in both the political and commercial dealings with Libya and, indeed, with most of North Africa is much underappreciated.
The drama playing out in Malta over ‘which side to be on in Libya’ will surely end on the side of the legitimately elected and internationally recognised House of Representatives and government in Tobruk.
Unmistakably, the confusion among the western diplomatic community causes them to keep sending out mixed messages as policy that is not at all clearly articulated and is, in fact, immoral. As such, UNSMIL is merely their vehicle and an incompetent one at that.
Where are the moral values against terrorism and extremists from the highbrow policymakers in the UN, the UK and from the West, most importantly America?
The contradictions in Western policy towards Libya are a tragedy.
Richard Galustian is a security analyst.