The barbaric terrorist organisation Daesh (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) declared its war on Libya and Egypt last week with its “Message Signed in Blood to the Christian Nation”. If there was ever a time for the West to support the Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah Al Thinni’s democratically-elected, internationally-recognised government in Tobruk, it should have been now.
In an address to the United Nations Security Council on February 18, Libya’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Al Dairi called on the international community to help his country combat Daesh by allowing it to build its national army, “This would come through a lifting of the embargo on weapons, so that our army can receive material and weapons, so as to deal with this rampant terrorism”.
Yet, despite this plea to the UN, the British Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, asserted: “The problem is that there isn’t a government in Libya that is effective and in control of its territory. There isn’t a Libyan military, which the international community can effectively support.” He also claimed: “The first condition has to be the creation of a government of national unity ... then the international community needs to rally very quickly around that government of national unity and ensure that it has the means to deal with terrorism.”
The demand from London (reiterated by Washington) for a unity government, is something that Libyans will inevitably fail to achieve and just buy Daesh more time to seize Libyan territory. It represents a gross error of judgement by Britain, in particular, which threatened to use its veto in the UN Security Council. Don’t Britain and the US realise that recent events in Libya pose a real and imminent threat to Europe and all western interests?
In addition to the obvious arms needed to defeat Daesh, there is clearly a requirement by the Libyan Air Force for air-lift transport planes and helicopters, if only for humanitarian missions across the length and breadth of the vast country. In addition, there is need for experienced fighters, which can be provided by friendly Arab countries. Moreover, there are requirements for fast patrol craft for maritime surveillance operations, given the huge numbers of illegal refugees flowing into southern Europe.
So Libya has no time to waste.
In 2013 while attending Idex, the world’ largest defence exhibition in Abu Dhabi, Colonel Abdul Nasser Busnina, a senior air force officer and prominent leader of the February Revolution four years ago, said: “We have 2,000 kilometres of Mediterranean coastline to defend and six borders with African countries. We need to rebuild our armed forces. The equipment we have is old and in need of repair.”
Those words are as true today as they were two years ago.
It is interesting to note that Colonel Busnina is currently undergoing advanced officer training at a US War College and will be one of a handful of American-trained officers to return to Libya in 2016. Russia wants to fill the void left in Libya by the Americans and the British and supply arms directly to Tobruk, something Moscow is already doing indirectly through Egypt. This helps Russia widen its sphere of influence throughout the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region. It is important to remember that the Libyan Air Force has planes mostly of Russian and former Eastern bloc origin.
The US and UK must alter their policies so that North Africa remains in the western camp or alternatively resign themselves to cede a part of North Africa to Russia and certain European Union (EU) countries commercially, politically and militarily. A notable exception in the West is France, which seems to have understood the dynamics of the Maghreb, in common with the Russians.
Paris, of course, is already fully engaged in the Magreb and Mena region, from Mali to the Arabian Gulf, with the appropriate force structure, sales and what looks like a well thought-out strategy. France’s coup in selling its fifth generation Rafale fighter jets to Egypt last week inevitably will create a domino effect of similar extremely valuable contracts for France from other countries in the Middle East.
It is a tragic miscalculation by the West to continue to talk to Tripoli’s rebel Libya Dawn coalition, made up of extremists. This is compounded by Britain and America’s decision to reject the Libyan government’s plea for a lifting of the arms embargo to fight Daesh. It means that the consequence of their trying to impose a ‘unity government’ that effectively tries to coerce the existing democratically elected Tobruk government to resign, has resulted in Al Thinni’s government and the House of Representatives pulling out altogether from the United Nations Support Mission in Libya peace talks. This could ultimately be the spark that starts a process of partitioning the country into two states. The blame would fall squarely on the shoulders of the West if that occurs.
Richard Galustian is a business and security analyst who has lived in Libya since 2011.
