How to Contain Libya's New Warlord

Tarek Megerisi's article in Foreign Policy makes the claim that "Libya’s new unity government can survive only by finding a way to stand up to General Khalifa Haftar and his army."

Libya is already a mess, but things may be about to take a serious turn for the worse. Only a few months have passed since the United Nations helped Libyans to cobble together a unity government that was supposed to end the country’s two-year civil war. Yet now that faint hope of stability is threatening to vanish — and the result could be an even broader conflict, one that might even ultimately lead to partition. ...Haftar has consistently rejected the internationally backed Government of National Accord (GNA) and the militia army loyal to it. ...Having seized control of Benghazi and other areas, he has shown that he can return a semblance of stability and peace, an immensely appealing achievement to a population that has suffered five years of near-continuous warfare. ...If the unity government wants to show that it can do a better job, it should start by creating a truly unified army. The GNA’s recent appointment of Mahdi al-Barghathi, one of Haftar’s previous commanders, to the post of defense minister, sets a good example of what needs to be done. The troops of the Qaddafi-era army, who were regarded with suspicion by the dictator and systematically neglected in favor of elite units commanded by his sons, remain the best foundation for a modern and genuinely national army. Rather than attempting to build on them, though, the unity government has relied on a ragtag assortment of existing militias. The same strategy was pursued by the GNA’s predecessors, and it is destined to fail for the same reasons that these earlier attempts did: these militias are loyal only to themselves, not to any civilian administration, and they are correspondingly useless as a fighting force. The unity government should be doing everything it can to assure the populace that it is the surest path to stability and prosperity. Instead, unable to extend its influence beyond relatively small fiefdoms in Tripoli and Misrata, the GNA has been focusing on cultivating its international image. ... The GNA’s inability to distinguish itself from previous transitional administrations is leading an already suspicious population to trust in the devil they know (Haftar) rather than risk supporting yet another weak government that is heavy on rhetoric and light on substance.

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