“Horrific and brutal” acts of terrorism in Libya have “shaken our collective conscience” and must prompt swift action in support of the political process there, said Bernadino León, Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).
He delivered those remarks during his videoconference address to the Security Council at its emergency meeting held on February 18th. “No words can express my outrage and revulsion at the beheading of 21 men, including 20 Egyptian nationals, who were targeted for no other reason than their religious beliefs and nationality,” he added.
Mr. León noted the “imminent danger” from the extremist groups that have arisen since the end of the revolution in Libya in 2011 and have filled the vacuum left by warring militias and fragile state institutions. While recognizing progress made so far in bringing the main parties in the country together to engage in dialogue in an effort to resolve the political crisis, he said more needs to be done quickly to bring an end to the military and political conflict. A comprehensive anti-terrorism strategy was needed, and such efforts could not be simply a series of isolated acts. “The window of opportunity is rapidly closing and no effort must be spared,” he said. Other than urging more political dialogue, however, Mr. León offered little in the way of specifics on what a comprehensive anti-terrorism strategy should look like.
Left unsaid by Mr. León was the stark reality that the well-armed ISIS and other jihadist terrorists spreading their tentacles throughout Libya reject the very idea of political dialogue and pluralism. They can only be stopped by forceful military measures that eliminate their presence altogether.
The Libyan and Egyptian foreign affairs ministers who spoke in person at the Security Council meeting recognized the need for military action. Their solution was to urge the Council to lift arms sanctions and for the international community to provide weapons to the Libyan National Army in order to bolster their forces to fight the terrorists.
Mohamed Elhadi Dayri, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Libya, warned that ISIS had taken over ports, oil fields and cities, working tirelessly to kill people and destroy economies. They are threatening Libya and neighboring states, with Europe in their sights. “We can no longer remain silent in the face of terrorism,” he said. “As of now, the challenges facing the legitimate forces of Libya are enormous now that armed terrorist groups have taken whole cities and proclaimed Al-Qaida doctrine.”
Minister Dayri emphasized time and again the need for international support to save his country from the terrorist threat. His country was not looking for direct outside military intervention, he said, although he acknowledged that Libya had called on Egypt for help and was grateful for its assistance. Egypt is conducting an aerial bombing campaign against ISIS in the wake of the mass beheadings of its citizens last weekend. What Libya wants from the international community most of all are weapons to support its army and the lifting of the arms embargo.
Sameh Shoukry, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Egypt, reminded the Security Council that Egypt’s past warnings about the danger that the extremists posed to Libya have materialized. Unlike the other speakers, he was not afraid to identify the ideology fueling the terrorists’ attacks as “violent political Islam.”
Minister Shoukry supported his Libyan counterpart’s call for lifting restrictions on arming the Libyan National Army. At the same time he also urged consideration of a naval blockade against the transport of arms from illegitimate sources into Libya that are intended for the jihadists. While a political solution was an absolute necessity, he said, it was not an alternative to militarily confronting terrorism. Egypt was doing its part, although in response to my question at a press briefing following the Security Council meeting, Minister Shoukry was non-committal on whether Egypt would be willing to put boots on the ground as part of a coalition to fight ISIS.
Unfortunately, conditions in Libya are so fragile right now that removing the arms embargo and entrusting the shaky Libyan National Army with more sophisticated weapons will likely do more harm than good. It would most probably end badly, with the jihadists seizing those weapons just as they have done in Iraq and Syria as well as in Libya itself. Egypt’s intervention, backed up by other Arab states such as the United Arab Emirates, is the best answer at this juncture.
Incredibly, the Obama administration is not supporting Egypt’s military operation against ISIS. “We discourage other nations from taking a part in Libya’s issues through violence,” Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said. “We want the issues solved in Libya to be done peacefully and through good governance and politics and not violence.” In other words, Admiral Kirby is making the preposterous suggestion that Egypt should stand by silently and rely on negotiations to prevent more beheadings of its citizens. Kirby drew a false distinction between the United States’ bombing of ISIS in Iraq and Egypt’s bombing campaign in Libya. The U.S., he said, was engaging in targeted bombing with the consent of the Iraqi government, implying that Egypt by contrast was acting on its own. The fact is that the U.S. is also bombing ISIS in Syria without the consent of the Syrian government. And Egypt is conducting its bombing campaign in Libya at the request of the Libyan government, as Libya’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mohamed Elhadi Dayri told the Security Council.
While Libya’s implosion was being discussed at the Security Council in New York, President Obama was hosting his community circles summit on countering violent extremism in Washington, D.C. Speaking on February 18th to a meeting of state and local officials, private industry representatives, and members of civil society, which was focused on domestic actions at the community level to deal with violent extremism, the community-organizer-in-chief intoned for the umpteenth time that “we are not at war with Islam, we are at war with those who have perverted Islam.” And, evidencing his continued denial of reality, President Obama claimed that “we all know there is no one profile of a violent extremist or terrorist.”
Tell that to Egypt, which, unlike the Obama administration, is willing to name and confront head on the Islamic jihadist ideology animating the enemy. Obama’s insistence on using the banal phrase “violent extremism” to describe such barbaric acts as the recent beheadings of the innocent Egyptian Christians in Libya, which Egypt is appropriately revenging, serves only to relieve the perpetrators of guilt for the genocide and crimes against humanity they have committed.
The Obama administration should be thanking the Egyptian government as well as Jordan and the United Arab Emirates for their military actions, not leveling snide criticisms. It should use their willingness to become actively engaged in the fight against the jihadists as models for building a real coalition that will take the fight to the enemy wherever they are located. Community circle summits like the kind the Obama administration convened this week in Washington just won’t carry the day.
Clarification: This article's statement that the Obama administration is not supporting Egypt’s most recent military operation in Libya against ISIS is accurate. However, the following quote in the article attributed to Pentagon spokesman Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby was said by him in August 2014 regarding Egyptian air strikes in Libya on targets other than ISIS, not with regard to Egypt's most recent strikes against ISIS: “We discourage other nations from taking a part in Libya’s issues through violence. We want the issues solved in Libya to be done peacefully and through good governance and politics and not violence.”
Here is what Adm. Kirby said during his press briefing on February 18, 2015:
"I think it's important to remember the context with which I said that back in August. That was -- that was not a -- those missions conducted by Egyptian forces was not -- they were not, or I think UAE was involved as well, was not involved against ISIL, or necessarily a terrorist network.It was a different sort altogether. So, I stand by what we said back then. We aren't taking a position here in the Pentagon on these recent strikes by Egypt, which I'm -- certainly we're aware of it. We -- we didn't -- we weren't notified ahead of time. We didn't participate or support them in any way, and we're not taking a position on it." (Emphasis added)
Adm. Kirby also said in his February 18th briefing that, while the U.S. has provided Egypt with Apache helicopters to help its counter-terrorism efforts, "we are still holding -- currently holding on the delivery of several weapon systems, to include the F-16s, the -- the M1A1 tanks and -- and some other things, like Harpoon missiles." He added that the reason such weapons are still on hold is because of "the political developments in there" and that "it's a complex relationship that we have with Egypt."
