Rome Conference on Libya a Non-event
December 14, 2015 | 2:21 PM
By Richard J.C. Galustian
Photo: US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni during a meeting in Rome, Italy, on Sunday. Italy and the United States hosted talks on Sunday to press libya's divided political factions to quickly sign up to a United Nations-backed peace agreement.
Sunday's Rome Conference on Libya was a non-event designed to please Western bureaucrats and achieve their aims, not help the Libyan people who have been sliced, diced, and divided since Gaddafi's fall.
For example, the conference did not give Libya 40 days to form a Presidential Council as was envisaged but gave all power to a nine-member council that will be formed 'automatically' on signing of the agreement. That council then was to be given 30 days to form a new government. Six of the names were not selected by Libyans as one would expect but by a Spaniard working for the UN! The last three have yet to be announced.
The conference expects the two rival Libyan governments to sign a truce in Tunis on December 16, something highly unlikely. Even if some Libyans sign something who exactly will they be representing; it will be worthless.
For me these failures will simply give the green light for foreign Air Forces to start bombing in the near future IS in Libya.
As far as Britain is concerned, after a bruising House of Commons encounter on extending strikes to Syria, Prime Minister Cameron is facing a new dilemma - whether to go back to parliament to ask for air strikes in Libya. That is a 'Catch-22' for him. Sunday's Conference was rather a theatrical affair chaired by US Secretary of State John Kerry, with a notably absentee, Cameron's Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond.
IS is growing leaps and bounds in Libya, and has now taken hold of the Libyan town of Sabratha, a UNESCO world heritage site and home to one of the world's best-preserved Roman amphitheatres. Destruction is in store for this famous landmark.
More seriously IS threaten to cut off oil ports and dislocate what remains of Libya’s economy and seize the oil.
France, pressured by a huge upsurge in the popularity of the National Front, needs to show decisiveness and its Prime Minister said last week the bombing sooner or later of IS in Libya was inevitable. In my opinion that could mean as soon as next week.
In addition, Egypt and Tunisia, being hit by Libya trained IS, are screaming for action, with Egypt contemplating military action on their own no doubt in concert with the popular but controversial Gen. Hafter based in East Libya.
The Foreign office and State Department have a love-in with the Muslim Brotherhood that dates from post 9/11, pushing it as a non-extremist alternative movement to both IS and Al Qaida. A huge mistake. With the Brotherhood on the back foot elsewhere in the MENA region, the Foreign office and State Department mandarins are nevertheless pushing a UN peace deal that gives the Brotherhood backed Libya Dawn militias control of Tripoli, the Central Bank and National Oil Company, to the fury of the last elected government which fled Tripoli for Tobruk which remains recognised by the UN.
Senior military officials I spoke to are less concerned with the politics than the job at hand - bomb IS early, and you need less bombs. Leave it to fester and Libya will become a Caliphate on the Mediterranean, only this time controlling a large swathe of the North African coastline. Already IS holds 150 miles of coastline around its central base from Sirte. Its failure so far to attack ships passing through the Med, is likely to be just tactical. It needs more time to grow and take firmer root; all that is lacking is more of a robust capability. Italy is rightly fearful of an attack by IS particularly directed at the Vatican.
Sunday’s Rome conference thus saw a degree of desperation on the part of Kerry and assorted diplomats particularly Italian, under the West's unprecedented pressure to get a unity government agreed I believe so the bombers can be “invited” to strike.
What will the West do, should, like Syria and Iraq, the imperialist-recognized Libyan regime invites Russia's military help?
That said, Cameron needs no Commons vote for strikes; the UN resolutions of 2011 giving authority to bomb anyone in Libya endangering civilians remain in place, and in fact those resolutions, under Chapter 7, are stronger than the Chapter 6 resolution passed by the UN in the case of Syria.
Tactically, my guess is that the generals are encouraged they can succeed. IS units dug into three outposts, Benghazi and the hills above Derna in the east and Sabratha, west of the Tripoli, make good targets. This is because they are surrounded by militias of various stripes, some extremist, many not, who could help pick them off as they flee the bombing as the surrounding terrain leaves no place to hide.
Sirte is more of a problem, with IS embedded among the relatively larger civilian population and the town, now a magnet for foreign fighters from Tunisia, Mali, Sudan and Yemen, its units pushing across the Sirte Basin, is home to Libya’s biggest concentration of oil fields.
Libya’s militias are unwilling to sacrifice lives to winkle IS out of Sirte, but French and even Russian bombing may contain it, and at least keep the oil ports out of militant hands.
Regardless of whatever happens from now, chaos is guaranteed to prevail in Libya.
By Richard J.C. Galustian
Photo: US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni during a meeting in Rome, Italy, on Sunday. Italy and the United States hosted talks on Sunday to press libya's divided political factions to quickly sign up to a United Nations-backed peace agreement.
Sunday's Rome Conference on Libya was a non-event designed to please Western bureaucrats and achieve their aims, not help the Libyan people who have been sliced, diced, and divided since Gaddafi's fall.
For example, the conference did not give Libya 40 days to form a Presidential Council as was envisaged but gave all power to a nine-member council that will be formed 'automatically' on signing of the agreement. That council then was to be given 30 days to form a new government. Six of the names were not selected by Libyans as one would expect but by a Spaniard working for the UN! The last three have yet to be announced.
The conference expects the two rival Libyan governments to sign a truce in Tunis on December 16, something highly unlikely. Even if some Libyans sign something who exactly will they be representing; it will be worthless.
For me these failures will simply give the green light for foreign Air Forces to start bombing in the near future IS in Libya.
As far as Britain is concerned, after a bruising House of Commons encounter on extending strikes to Syria, Prime Minister Cameron is facing a new dilemma - whether to go back to parliament to ask for air strikes in Libya. That is a 'Catch-22' for him. Sunday's Conference was rather a theatrical affair chaired by US Secretary of State John Kerry, with a notably absentee, Cameron's Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond.
IS is growing leaps and bounds in Libya, and has now taken hold of the Libyan town of Sabratha, a UNESCO world heritage site and home to one of the world's best-preserved Roman amphitheatres. Destruction is in store for this famous landmark.
More seriously IS threaten to cut off oil ports and dislocate what remains of Libya’s economy and seize the oil.
France, pressured by a huge upsurge in the popularity of the National Front, needs to show decisiveness and its Prime Minister said last week the bombing sooner or later of IS in Libya was inevitable. In my opinion that could mean as soon as next week.
In addition, Egypt and Tunisia, being hit by Libya trained IS, are screaming for action, with Egypt contemplating military action on their own no doubt in concert with the popular but controversial Gen. Hafter based in East Libya.
The Foreign office and State Department have a love-in with the Muslim Brotherhood that dates from post 9/11, pushing it as a non-extremist alternative movement to both IS and Al Qaida. A huge mistake. With the Brotherhood on the back foot elsewhere in the MENA region, the Foreign office and State Department mandarins are nevertheless pushing a UN peace deal that gives the Brotherhood backed Libya Dawn militias control of Tripoli, the Central Bank and National Oil Company, to the fury of the last elected government which fled Tripoli for Tobruk which remains recognised by the UN.
Senior military officials I spoke to are less concerned with the politics than the job at hand - bomb IS early, and you need less bombs. Leave it to fester and Libya will become a Caliphate on the Mediterranean, only this time controlling a large swathe of the North African coastline. Already IS holds 150 miles of coastline around its central base from Sirte. Its failure so far to attack ships passing through the Med, is likely to be just tactical. It needs more time to grow and take firmer root; all that is lacking is more of a robust capability. Italy is rightly fearful of an attack by IS particularly directed at the Vatican.
Sunday’s Rome conference thus saw a degree of desperation on the part of Kerry and assorted diplomats particularly Italian, under the West's unprecedented pressure to get a unity government agreed I believe so the bombers can be “invited” to strike.
What will the West do, should, like Syria and Iraq, the imperialist-recognized Libyan regime invites Russia's military help?
That said, Cameron needs no Commons vote for strikes; the UN resolutions of 2011 giving authority to bomb anyone in Libya endangering civilians remain in place, and in fact those resolutions, under Chapter 7, are stronger than the Chapter 6 resolution passed by the UN in the case of Syria.
Tactically, my guess is that the generals are encouraged they can succeed. IS units dug into three outposts, Benghazi and the hills above Derna in the east and Sabratha, west of the Tripoli, make good targets. This is because they are surrounded by militias of various stripes, some extremist, many not, who could help pick them off as they flee the bombing as the surrounding terrain leaves no place to hide.
Sirte is more of a problem, with IS embedded among the relatively larger civilian population and the town, now a magnet for foreign fighters from Tunisia, Mali, Sudan and Yemen, its units pushing across the Sirte Basin, is home to Libya’s biggest concentration of oil fields.
Libya’s militias are unwilling to sacrifice lives to winkle IS out of Sirte, but French and even Russian bombing may contain it, and at least keep the oil ports out of militant hands.
Regardless of whatever happens from now, chaos is guaranteed to prevail in Libya.
No comments:
Post a Comment