GENEVA – As
post-revolution Libya
looks ahead, Iraq
looms as a perilous example. After 42 years of dictatorship, Libya,
like Iraq in
2003 after the fall of Saddam Hussein, needs more than wishful thinking to
become a vibrant democracy. It needs organized state-building in Tripoli
– and realistic policymaking in Western capitals.
Successful transitions depend from the start on factors that are still
crucially missing in Libya
– a relatively cohesive leadership, an active civil society, and national
unity. Without these, Libya
will most likely fail to find its footing and, much like post-Saddam Iraq,
suffer from persistent political division and volatile civil disorder, in
addition to a multifaceted array of geopolitical pressures.
Avoiding that outcome presupposes a
strong political center. But, from the start of the uprising in February 2011, Libya
has been politically atomized. It lacks the sort of civil society that could
have led the uprising and planted the seeds for post-authoritarian politics, as
was the case in Tunisia
and (more problematically) Egypt.
Libya’s
transition was arguably further impeded by NATO’s intervention, as the rapid
shift from a spontaneous popular uprising to an elite-led and externally
supported movement prevented the revolution from following the linear course
seen in Tunisia
and Egypt.
Thus, despite substantial international support, the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC)
still lacks the level of consensus needed to form a viable government.
The NTC has suffered regular internal
disputes, and its membership and functioning are shrouded in secrecy. Last
July, the Council’s military leader, Abdul Fatah Younis al-Obeidi, was
assassinated under ambiguous circumstances. Then, in November, the NTC’s
military prosecutor named its own former deputy prime minister, Ali al-Issawi,
as the prime suspect. The conflict and opacity surrounding the case are telling
signs of the country’s political fragility since Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s
demise.
Libya
should take note of how Iraq’s
post-Saddam transition has featured ceaseless power struggles and infighting.
In 2010, Iraqi political leaders’ machinations – personal, as well as tribal
and sectarian – left the country without a government for 249 days.
Today, Libya
appears set to undergo similar struggles, owing mostly to the presence of
powerful political actors outside the NTC. The 20,000-strong Tripoli Military
Council, for example, which controls the capital, has been consistently
independent of the NTC, and forced out its first foreign minister, Mahmoud
Jibril.
The rival Tripoli’s
Revolutionists Council, meanwhile, has warned that it would unseat any incoming
government should its demands for representation not be met. The NTC also faces
pressure from Libya’s
Berbers, who comprise 10% of the population and have already taken to the
streets to denounce the new political arrangements and to reject any system
that does not accommodate their culture and language.
This dissension may well be compounded
by two additional factors. The first is major cities’ competing sense of
entitlement to the fruits of the revolution: Misurata, where Qaddafi’s body was
displayed; Tripoli, which hosted
the liberation ceremony; and Zintan, which is holding Qaddafi’s son, Saif
al-Islam el-Qaddafi, prisoner. And all of them, like most Libyans, share the
unrealistic expectation that their new found freedom will somehow solve their
socio-economic woes.
The second complicating factor is that
political power now lies in the hands of competing militias. The internecine
rivalries that began in earnest last November between fighters from Zawiya and
Warshefana, and among Tripoli’s
various factions, will be difficult to defuse, as the thowar
(revolutionaries) have refused repeated calls by the NTC to disarm. Tripoli
is in danger of becoming like Baghdad
circa 2005, with different groups controlling turf and instituting a
clientelist neighborhood political economy.
Inter-urban competition and the
militias’ defiant independence are all the more worrisome because Libya is
awash in weapons, with unguarded caches, abandoned stockpiles, looted
ammunition depots, and thousands of shoulder-fired heat-seeking surface-to-air
missiles. Last November, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the commander of al-Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), confirmed that AQIM seized the opportunity to secure
some of this arsenal when the revolution started.
Meanwhile, the aims of France,
the United Kingdom,
the United States,
the Arab League, NATO, and Qatar,
all of which have played a role in Libya’s
transformation, are unlikely to be the same. In other words, external
pressures, too, are likely to pull Libya
in several different directions, which will only further delay an autonomous
and sustainable state-building process.
Qaddafi left behind a booby-trap. The
collapse of authoritarian rule created a security vacuum with no functioning
state apparatus, making Libya
highly exposed to international influence, often in the service of corporate
interests. To avoid repetition of the costly mistakes made in Iraq,
Libya will
require adroit leadership that can elaborate a compelling new national vision
with which to unify competing authorities, rein in undisciplined militias, and
minimize the country’s strategic vulnerability.
Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou is Head of the Middle East and North
Africa Program at the Geneva Center for Security Policy and a visiting
professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.