Mark Choate, retired U.S. Army colonel and diplomat, is associate professor of history at Brigham Young University and the author of Emigrant Nation: the Making of Italy Abroad. Choate spoke to a February 3 Middle East Forum Podcast (video). The following is a summary of his comments:
Libya was always comprised of “two separate entities on the coast: Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, with Fezzan to the south.” The “ancient region” of Libya has been ruled by many empires throughout history. The Kingdom of Italy gained control of Libya’s two entities in the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12 during which it defeated the Ottoman Empire through “the first use of air power in world history.”
Italy controlled only Libya’s coast until the Italian fascist regime’s conquest of Libya from 1928 to 1932 “which killed one-third to one-half of the Bedouin population.”
Italy controlled only Libya’s coast until the Italian fascist regime’s conquest of Libya from 1928 to 1932 “which killed one-third to one-half of the Bedouin population.” However, by focusing on Ethiopia, the Italians overlooked the discovery of Libya’s oil. Libya was united in 1934 under the Italian governor Italo Balbo, with Tripoli as its capital. There was Arab and Islamic resistance to Italian control in Cyrenaica. Begun in 1911 by a Sanusi imam and general, Omar al-Mukhtar, the resistance continued until the general’s death in 1931.
In 1943, during World War II, the Italians were defeated by British and Free French forces who then occupied Libya. Libya gained its independence in 1951 when Idris, the head of a Sanusi order and leader of the resistance, became “the first post-fascist king of Libya.” In 1969, he was overthrown in a coup by the Libyan army’s Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi. In 2011, a revolt against Qaddafi’s four-decade rule, which resulted in a civil war and Qaddafi’s overthrow, “brought an end to the unity of Libya formed 76 years previously.”
Today, “the U.N.-recognized government in Tripoli” in western Libya is supported by “the Muslim Brotherhood states” of Qatar and Turkey. Eastern Libya under General Khalifa Haftar’s anti-Islamists is supported by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an anti-Muslim Brotherhood state, and by Russia, a country he aligns with in the absence of U.S. or Western support. In a recent development, Russia has moved its mercenary and criminal forces to Libya from its fallen client Assad in Syria. However, the Kremlin’s attempt to integrate this force into Haftar’s Ministry of Defense is like “mixing oil and water.” The conflict in Libya is an example of the “internal factions being manipulated and supported by external resources and external leaders as well.”
A second civil war that erupted in 2014 and ended in 2020 with a U.S.-brokered truce that still holds, “but there [are] still ongoing issues of international involvement and international pressures.” Libya is geographically close to the European Union and especially to Italy’s coastline, causing the Italian government to enter into an agreement limiting Central African migrants traversing Libya from flooding into Italy.
Today, “the U.N.-recognized government in Tripoli” in western Libya is supported by “the Muslim Brotherhood states” of Qatar and Turkey.
Qaddafi’s oil revenues were massive enough to furnish “stockpiles of weapons” across the entire continent of Africa and fuel the “ongoing problem” of the fight to control different parts of Libya and its resources. Given America’s involvement in Qaddafi’s overthrow in 2011, “in the U.S., Libya is more or less a taboo topic.” Since 2011, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has “invested more than a billion dollars [of humanitarian aid] in the different regions of Libya.”
The U.S. does not support or arm either side in the Libyan conflict, which makes a “freeze on USAID” damaging to America’s position in Libya. “The maintenance of U.S. presence and involvement and care through non-controversial humanitarian means and presence has been very important.” Libyans grew up with the U.S. addressing humanitarian problems during civil wars and conflicts, forging “a long-term path to building a long-term relationship to encourage stability.” Continuing USAID “with people who know and understand the U.S.” strengthens a relationship that encourages this stability. It is far better to cultivate peace, prosperity, growth and development in Libya rather than “the turmoil from Africa flooding Europe and the rest of the world.”
The importance of this support is even more of an issue considering the emergence of “slave-trade markets” in Libya about a decade ago whereby Libyans in desperate financial straits sell themselves as indentured servants. There is so much “want, and hunger, and famine” there that humanitarian agencies are among the few ameliorating circumstances offering a path to work and growth. “There’s so much money in Libya, you can’t just let it disappear because it won’t disappear. All the other powers will come in and take it over in a nasty way.” Exiting Libya will leave a vacuum filled by far worse. Angry and desperate people who may go to extremes to avoid slavery are more susceptible to becoming radicalized. They can be lured into suicide bombing and into targeting wealthy countries.
Libya has never been strong to begin with, “given the longstanding divisions between east and west.”
“Engaging with Libya is in everyone’s interest, and just pretending it just disappeared is really not constructive and not realistic either. Libya has a lot to offer, the U.S. has a lot to offer. There are bases for understanding.” The U.N.’s humanitarian air service flies U.S. officials and diplomats into the region to see “the administration and distribution” of aid. Such oversight can ensure that aid does not fall into “the clutches of the Muslim Brotherhood or would-be terrorists.”
Aid “should be under the U.S. flag, not under the USAID logo.” The Kennedy administration established USAID to counter Soviet influence during the Cold War, and it played an important role in east Africa and elsewhere in Africa, the Middle East, and the rest of the world after the Cold War. It showed that, as “the leader of the free world”, the U.S. cared about these people. If America cuts off aid in Libya, it will “completely undermine the U.S. position” there. Moreover, it will cripple “U.S. credibility and influence” if USAID is not improved upon. Reform the agency, but “if it’s just terminated, this will be a major disaster.”
Libya has never been strong to begin with, “given the longstanding divisions between east and west.” A U.S. goal should be to “build relations with both sides” in Libya’s “disarray” and encourage peace and development until Libya gets back to a “rational administration instead of a frozen civil war.”
