The United Nations Security Council heard today a report chronicling the virtual state of anarchy that exists presently in Libya. President Obama's "lead from behind" intervention in Libya to topple the Gaddafi regime has left behind a far more dangerous situation.
Special Representative of the UN Secretary General and head of the UN mission in Libya, Tarek Mitri, reported that "there has been a dramatic increase in violence across the country" during the last three months. "Libya faces the risk of embarking on a new trajectory of unprecedented violence,” he added.
The violence is coming from multiple directions – militias and revolutionary brigades which refuse to submit to government control, remnants of the Gaddafi regime who have retained their weapons and receive support from officials of the Gaddafi regime now living outside of Libya, and jihadists who are using force and intimidation to impose their strict Islamist vision on the country.
Things are especially bad in the eastern portion of Libya where, according to Mr. Mitri, "the unabated campaign of targeted assassinations, bombings, and abductions in Benghazi has reached intolerable levels." Many of the victims have been security and judicial personnel, but "civilians have also suffered unchecked terror and intimidation." Parenthetically, eighteen months have passed since the brutal murders of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya John Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi, with no apprehension of the perpetrators. Impunity is the rule, not the exception, in this lawless country.
There is also a proliferation of weapons entering and leaving Libya, despite an arms embargo, the chairman of the Libya Sanctions Committee, Rwanda’s UN Ambassador Gasana, informed the Security Council in a separate report. Libya has become a primary source of illicit weapons, contributing to the expansion of terrorism in several continents, he said.
Libya lacks an effective central government. Deep divisions over its composition and powers, following an extended transitional period, "have paralyzed the political process," according to Mr. Mitri. On February 18th, for example, two armed brigades gave an ultimatum to General National Congress members to step down within five hours or face military intervention. They backed off, but on March 2nd "the General National Congress building was stormed by protestors demanding its dissolution," Mr. Mitri reported. "About 150 young men ransacked the main chamber and assaulted members, four of whom were injured."
Libya is also facing the prospect of bankruptcy as oil revenues are siphoned off by non-state militias or simply foregone because of militia blockades. Thus far, the Libyan government has suffered a 70% decline in oil income from normal levels. On March 8th, Mr. Mitri said, "Libyan oil was loaded on a North Korean flagged vessel by armed groups who have been blockading a number of oil terminals and fields in eastern Libya for months." Mr. Mitri told the Security Council that such acts were illegal "in violation of Libya's sovereignty over its ports and natural resources." The Libyan UN ambassador said at the same Security Council meeting that his country would not tolerate such "piracy against the resources of the Libyan people.” The Libyan government, such as it is, has even threatened to blow up the North Korean-flagged tanker if it tries to ship oil from the militia-controlled port, which its UN ambassador conceded would create an environmental catastrophe. Whether the Libyan could carry out such an unwise attack is an open question since previous orders by the prime minister to the army to deal with the militia have been ignored.
In short, Libya is imploding. And at the same time, it remains a major source of weapons for terrorists throughout the Middle East and Africa. While President Obama flits from one crisis to the next and leaves a trail of failures behind him, his words of victory in Libya delivered to a gathering at the UN in 2011 ring rather hollow now: “Libya is a lesson in what the international community can achieve when we stand together as one.” The lesson that Obama and his friends in the international community should learn from the Libyan debacle is the law of unintended consequences.
