The West, the so-called international community, has done nothing but to allow Isis to grow from a small cell to a mass movement in Libya which, Britain conceded last week, it might take only foreign air strikes to stop.
The British ambassador’s inferred potential for military action on Radio France International came as Isis celebrated its latest slaughter in the town of Sirte, where patients were hacked to death in their beds in bloodshed that cost up to 200 lives.
Isis works like a franchise, the terrorist equivalent of KFC. It arrived in Libya this time last year in kit form – a crazed bearded leader from Yemen, plus a couple of hundred hardened fighters and a propaganda unit muscled their way into the town of Derna. Derna has long been a hotbed of Islamist activity, but this small Isis cell could have been crushed with short decisive commando action.
Instead, the West sat on its hands, watching. With Libya’s recognised government already fighting a civil war against the Islamist Libya Dawn militias who hold Tripoli, Isis was able to expand fast into the chaos. It rapidly took over Sirte, then expanded in the spring into the Sirte Basin oilfields with its familiar litany of terror, butchery and slaughter.
Over in Iraq and Syria, London and Washington are unleashing daily airstrikes on Isis, but in Libya there is nothing, even when the terrorists butchered 21 Christians on the shoreline outside Sirte. Air strikes alone don’t work, anywhere. Ground troops must be committed to destroy Isis in Libya.
A major reason for this inactivity by the West is the incompetence of our Western leaders, who until now have put their trust in the blundering, ridiculous excuse of peace talks convened by the envoy of the United Nations Special Mission to Libya, Bernardino Leon.
The anniversary of his appointment passed last weekend, and what an unhappy anniversary it has proven to be. Since taking the envoy job, Leon has convened peace talks in Algeria, Morocco, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and Libya itself, searching for peace and getting absolutely nowhere. Leon has undermined his own credibility by insisting, at each talks session, that this is the “last chance” for peace, only to see that chance melt away.
He told Libyans in January that the country was about to collapse, demanding a fast deal, and nothing happened. In June he demanded peace before the start of Ramadan, and again nothing happened. And now he is demanding a deal by the end of August, but so damaged is his credibility that Libyans know they can ignore him.
The ceiling has already fallen in, and without quick military action, the whole house will come down very soon
This peace process has drifted into farce as Leon has unveiled draft after draft of a peace plan, each one more complicated and ridiculous than the last. His core problem is that he is trying to get the elected, internationally recognised, government to make peace with Libya Dawn – rewarding Dawn for going to war and capturing Tripoli.
Along the way Leon has abandoned the one principle the UN was supposed to stick by – its commitment to democracy.
That has been thrown in the trash can in the desperation to get a deal, forgetting that an elected government cuts its own throat when it agrees to cut a deal with armed militias.
The UN has not been the only organisation to dump its principles in this chaos; so also has the International Criminal Court. When it comes to war crimes, no organis-ation on the planet surpasses Isis in eye-catching brutality, yet The Hague has yet to even investigate it for a single crime.
For a year the big powers hung on, believing Leon could make a peace deal to end Libya’s civil war and see a new, united government gang up to destroy Isis. And Isis has used the time to get stronger, bolder and more ruthless. And clever also, because Isis has concentrated its strength at Sirte, and in the oilfields south of the city, a slab of territory that sits in a no-man’s land between Libya Dawn to the west and government forces to the east.
Dawn is already facing Isis terrorist attacks, while government forces are fully committed, battling Isis and its allies in Benghazi. Neither force has anything to spare to tackle Sirte.
This week at the Arab League emergency meeting, the Libyan government in Tobruk spelt it out for the world: either outside powers bomb Isis or the UN lifts the arms embargo to let Libyans do it themselves. Doing nothing is no longer an option.
It seems an Arab Military Coalition is now finally being considered for an incursion into Libya, probably led by Egypt.
It won’t surprise readers to hear that the Tripoli government (the Dawn) asked that no foreign intervention take place against Isis on Libyan soil. No illusion as to their philosophical preference!
As for Libya itself, the ceiling has already fallen in, and without quick military action, the whole house will come down very soon.
Blame is entirely due to fall on Western policies and their want of a strategy.
And finally, as for Malta, wait for an influx of illegal migrants in the near future.
Richard Galustian is a security analyst.