The west's abandonment of Libya is irresponsible

When western powers decided to give their support to the rebels in Libya, back in 2011, the move was met with international approval. The UN approved the decision to impose a no-fly zone over the country. The Misrata rebels were empowered; the Libyan army was hammered by western firepower; and in October of that year, the dictator Muammar Gaddafi was deposed and murdered, after 42 years in power. The west’s role was hailed in media and political circles as an excellent model of humanitarian intervention; focused, short-term strikes, avoiding long-term military embroilment as in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Now, three years later, it seems that this applause was misplaced. Libya remains divided by civil war, violence between rival militias is out of control and armed groups roam the streets. The latest outbreak of violence has seen intense, escalating clashes between rival militias in the capital, Tripoli. Militias from Misrata, led by Salah Badi, a former commander in the 2011 revolution, have been fighting militias from Zintan since mid-July. The groups are battling for control of the airport and the surrounding districts. Weeks of this fighting have killed hundreds in Tripoli and Benghazi, while disrupting food, water and fuel supplies to civilians.

The violence has been so intense that it led to the evacuation of the US embassy in Tripoli on Saturday. The embassy, located near Airport Road, is close to the frontline between the two warring factions. On 25 July, Washington ordered the ambassador, Deborah Jones, to leave. Fire was held off temporarily as the Americans evacuated, and then resumed swiftly, with renewed intensity.

The US is not the only country to withdraw its diplomats from Libya. On 29 July, Germany announced that it would close its embassy, and Britain, France and Italy say that they have slimmed their embassy staff to essential staff only. A number of European countries have also warned their citizens to evacuate Libya. While the western countries concerned have all insisted that mediation efforts will continue, there is no doubt that this will leave the Libyan government, a weak institution, to put it lightly, with less diplomatic support as it struggles to stabilise the country.

It is a complicated picture; of course; states must prioritise diplomatic security and the safety of their own citizens. But for the international community to leave Libya equally seems like a high-risk strategy. Writing in the New York Times, Karim Mezran, senior fellow at the Atlantic Institute, called for a “combination of threats followed by limited international intervention and mediated negotiations.” Such an approach would require the threat of limited western military intervention to induce the militias to lay down their arms; the introduction of a peacekeeping force to protect civilians and government institutions; and aggressive mediation from the UN to bring about a roadmap for disarmament and political progress.

However, there is little appetite for such action in western halls of power. This is partly because international attention has simply shifted to other conflicts; events in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine are making the headlines far more than Libya, which has simply dropped off the western media’s list of priorities. There is also a perception of Libya as anti-western, heightened by the attack on the American mission in Benghazi in 2012.

The current situation in Libya has, at the very least, been exacerbated by the failure of the states that intervened to invest in nation-building. The removal of Gaddafi, after four decades of stringent dictatorship, left a power vacuum. In the absence of serious efforts to build up political infrastructure and systems, the militias that brought him down simply never put down their arms and a violent shadow state emerged.

Given this situation and the element of responsibility, it seems remarkably irresponsible for western states to continue to withdraw. It is also self-destructive, as arms from Libya continue to flow into Syria, Mali and elsewhere, and there is a continued risk of Libya falling to extremist groups. With no political or public appetite for expensive and complicated involvement in foreign conflicts, though, it does not seem as if anything in the international approach will change.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.