A Failed State Called Libya

Libya's problems aren't new or even surprising. They are all an extension of a catastrophic foreign policy decision made at the beginning of this decade, which is to have violently overthrown Muammar Gaddafi and to have plunged the country into a crisis it has not recovered from.

Failing to comprehend the country's fragile politics and society in empirical ways, the aftermath of the 2011 US-backed, NATO intervention has ensured that violence, chaos, extremism and destruction have become a mark of everyday life in the war-torn nation. If anything, a cold reminder the "democracy" gifted by the West to the nation.

In Western countries, the notion of democracy is often taken for granted, to the point that it is perceived and thus treated in highly idealistic ways. Whilst in practice, popular rule is made possible through a stable set of socio-economic conditions, entrenched institutional norms and thus a legitimized and widespread accepted set of "narratives" which permits the regime to exist unchallenged.

For obvious reasons, the Gaddafi regime was not popular amongst the international community and faced widespread disapproval for its sponsoring of insurgent groups and rampant corruption. The fact, however, that he was seated on Europe's periphery made the fate of the regime a core national interest to several countries in the region, thus when the regime plunged into war in 2011 between Gaddafi and the National Transitional Council, decisive action was taken. But wrong choices were made.

Rather than seeking to simply contain the conflict and prevent civilian casualties, as they claimed they were going to do, the participating NATO coalition instead decided to overstretch their mandate and advocate a full-blown regime change turning the war in favor of the rebels, which would climax in the brutal murder of Gaddafi in the open streets.

Behind it all was the belief that by getting rid of Gaddafi, a new pro-West regime will rise to power. (Yet there are some analyst who believe that the West wanted Libya in chaos and the present status in the Arab-African country has been planned and desired by the West.)

Libya is a failed state now, created from colonial imposed boundaries, which contains a number of fragmented tribal and ethnic-based loyalties and a weak, inorganic political center.

The existing social tensions and legitimate central authority simply have combusted into more war, as well as the rise of extremist ideologies, all of which have further destabilized the country and posed catastrophic consequences for the region, even Europe, including the spread of terrorism, migration crises and so on.

It is thus only inevitable that Libya has now given birth to a new "strongman" leader who is seizing the country by force. This is the legacy of Libya. Western-imposed military interventions are often based on a faulty idealism which takes for granted the privileges of home and fails to understand that democracy does not operate in a vacuum and is not a simplified game.

The NATO-led invasion of Libya for regime change in 2011 stands out as one of the most catastrophic miscalculations in modern Western foreign policy, one which has overseen the complete destruction, disarray and decimation of the North African nation, with catastrophic consequences for the rest of the region.

Source:FarsNews