Libya

The following is a guest post by Alexander Decina, research associate for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. For more than two years, the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) has sat in Tripoli, making little if any progress toward resolving Libya’s political crisis and ongoing conflict. On May 29, however, amid stagnant UN efforts, French President Emmanuel Macron convened a summit in Paris with the leaders of rival Libyan factions, and the parties agreed, in principle, to presidential and parliamentary elections by December 10. Macron, and anyone else frustrated with Libya’s lack of progress, may want to view the Paris agreement as a step forward, but they should not celebrate too soon. At best, and most likely, the December elections will fall through, and international efforts to resolve the Libyan crisis will lose further credibility. At worst, Libyans and their backers will force elections in far too short a timeframe, resulting in considerable violence and perhaps a full-scale resumption of the country’s civil war. Should this happen, the problems Libya’s conflict poses to its neighbors and to Europe—namely the migrant crisis and radical transnational groups operating in the country’s ungoverned space—will not only intensify; they may indeed become permanent. With these risks in mind, Libyans and the UN should not rush to premature elections that will do more harm than good. Instead, efforts to forge genuine progress in Libya should focus on creating a durable constitution and balanced election laws before Libyans go to the polls. BACKGROUND The UN has been trying since fall 2014 to resolve Libya’s political impasse and resulting violent internal conflict. Though the UN’s efforts were not without controversy, they convinced the two rival governments—the Tobruk-based House of Representatives (HoR) and the Tripoli-based General National Congress (GNC)—to sign the Libya Political Agreement (LPA) in December 2015. The agreement was to form an interim Presidency Council and underneath it a GNA unity government to consolidate the rival parliaments. The HoR, however, refused to adopt the LPA it had signed and fold into the new government for fear it would diminish the standing of its main military ally, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. Thus, the so-called unity government has foundered. In September 2017, the new UN Special Representative, Ghassan Salamé, announced an “Action Plan” to create some momentum. The plan urged Libya’s rival factions to amend and implement the LPA in order to finally legitimize the struggling GNA and unify rival factions, to pass the constitution by popular referendum, and, finally, to reach election laws to structure voting for presidential and parliamentary elections. Nine months later, the Action Plan has produced little progress. And so when Macron’s summit set deadlines—new election laws by September 16 and presidential and parliamentary elections by December 10, 2018—many welcomed it as an action-forcing mechanism to pressure Libyans into compromises. Necessary as additional pressure might be, the Paris timeframe does not provide sufficient time to implement crucial steps of the Action Plan. SKIPPING OVER THE LPA WOULD BE BAD Indeed, Libyans seem to have abandoned the amendment and full implementation of the 2015 LPA. If international efforts had been better consolidated, perhaps Libyans could have made more progress on this important step. Using the LPA to unify rival factions under the GNA would have made for a more productive transitional period and a more conducive environment for successful elections. Nonetheless, at this stage, Libyans, their international backers, and even the UN are hoping that holding new elections can paper over the failures of the LPA and the unity government by establishing a newly elected president and parliament. Whether the new government—should it come to fruition—can replace Libya’s existing parliaments as intended or simply creates a new rival body remains an open question. Despite it not being ratified and implemented, the UN and Libyans alike are using the LPA as the basis for procedures going forward—namely for legitimating the HoR’s role in the constitutional process and for setting the mechanism by which to come to electoral laws. Rival factions will have cause and justification in contesting elections and other state building measures that are based on the unimplemented LPA. SKIPPING THE CONSTITUTION AND RUSHING ELECTION LAWS WOULD BE WORSE While sidestepping the full implementation of the LPA brings with it real risks, skipping over the constitution and rushing election laws would be an even more serious mistake. Both a constitution and balanced election laws are essential to holding elections that advance, rather than undermine, forward progress. And yet it seems the plan reached in Paris will attempt to bypass or rush these crucial steps. The Paris Agreement stipulated that elections should be held on a “constitutional basis,” but it remains highly ambiguous as to what this language refers to—or even what it could refer to—and what the legal basis will be for December elections. The Constitutional Drafting Assembly did reach a draft constitution in July 2017 that provided guidance for presidential and parliamentary elections. A reluctant HoR was intended to approve the document by organizing a popular referendum on it that would need to pass a two-thirds popular vote. But eastern factions have stopped the constitution from going further by violent, political, and judicial means. Attendant Libyan parties in Paris made no commitments to pass this draft nor compose a new one before elections, and, considering the lack of pressure on obstinate factions, progress is highly unlikely in such a short timeframe. If the July 2017 draft cannot be used, will the elections be based on the 2011 Interim Constitutional Declaration? This document, established in the immediate aftermath of the late Muammar al-Qaddafi’s fall by a short-lived transitional government, did not provide any guidance for presidential mandates and powers and offers poor guidance on the length of parliamentary mandates. If the 2011 Interim Constitutional Declaration needs to be amended to set these parameters, it is unclear what the process for amending it will be given that Libya’s legislature remains divided. Holding elections without a constitution in place—or with a sloppily conceived “constitutional basis”—will leave powers, mandates, and term limits undefined or poorly defined, and competitions for power will be more fierce and violence more likely. If rival factions cannot agree on a constitution, it is unlikely that they will draft and agree on on balanced election laws. According to the LPA, new election laws must be drafted by a joint committee of the HoR and the HCS and then approved by the entire HoR. Each side will try to draft laws that are electorally advantageous to it, and without a constitution defining the parameters of power, the stakes will be even higher. If external players like France increase pressure or incentives for committee members to push through election laws that will not be amenable to their wider parliamentary bodies or their allied militias, then elections will be highly contentious. Given the precedent for electoral violence in Libya, those that stand to lose will be inclined to use violence to mitigate the results or prevent elections outright. WHAT LIBYA AND ITS INTERNATIONAL SUPPORTERS SHOULD DO Elections are certainly a necessary step for Libya. The mandates of each of Libya’s rival governments have expired or were never fully enacted, and no entity has enough credibility to gain the support of requisite militias to control the country. Without electoral or domestic legitimacy, the international community will continue struggling to consolidate support for any Libyan government. Fresh elections are needed to produce a new political body that external powers can rally around, but, at the same time, they are a risky endeavor and could provoke more violence. The very conflict the UN is currently trying to resolve was sparked by the results of a contentious election in 2014, and wider conflict could still emerge. Holding elections too early greatly exacerbates these risks. Thus, the push for elections should be accompanied by far greater international cooperation to pressure competing Libyan factions to reach agreement on a constitution before elections, not after. Outside actors should also press for genuine compromise on the election laws between Libya’s most powerful factions to avoid giving these factions cause and pretext to violently disrupt the elections. If the compromises needed to implement these steps—formal and informal—cannot be reached before elections, the notion that elections themselves will solve these problems is far-fetched. President Macron and others may want to champion the May 29 election agreement reached at the Paris summit as a step forward. With UN efforts bringing about so little progress, their desire to push for a nationwide vote in Libya before the end of the year is understandable. But if they press Libyans to hold elections without a durable constitution and balanced election laws in place, it could be a major step back, and Libya could again descend into widespread conflict as a result. The consequences will be felt in Libya, the region, and beyond.

False Dawn: Protest, Violence, and Democracy in the New Middle East will be available May 1 and published June 1.

Reading selections for the weekend of April 14, 2017.

Introducing Steven A. Cook's new book, False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East.

This blog post was coauthored with my research associate, Jennifer Wilson.  [Note: This post was updated to reflect an additional strike in Yemen in 2016, announced by U.S. Central Command on January 12, 2017.] As President Obama enters the final weeks of his presidency, there will be ample assessments of his foreign military approach, which has focused on reducing U.S. ground combat troops (with the notable exception of the Afghanistan surge), supporting local security partners, and authorizing the expansive use of air power. Whether this strategy “works”—i.e. reduces the threat posed by extremists operating from those countries and improves overall security and governance on the ground—is highly contested. Yet, for better or worse, these are the central tenets of the Obama doctrine. In President Obama’s last year in office, the United States dropped 26,172 bombs in seven countries. This estimate is undoubtedly low, considering reliable data is only available for airstrikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, and a single "strike," according to the Pentagon’s definition, can involve multiple bombs or munitions. In 2016, the United States dropped 3,028 more bombs—and in one more country, Libya—than in 2015. Most (24,287) were dropped in Iraq and Syria. This number is based on the percentage of total coalition airstrikes carried out in 2016 by the United States in Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), the counter-Islamic State campaign. The Pentagon publishes a running count of bombs dropped by the United States and its partners, and we found data for 2016 using OIR public strike releases and this handy tool.* Using this data, we found that in 2016, the United States conducted about 79 percent (5,904) of the coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, which together total 7,473. Of the total 30,743 bombs that the coalition dropped, then, the United States dropped 24,287 (79 percent of 30,743). To determine how many U.S. bombs were dropped on each Iraq and Syria, we looked at the percentage of total U.S. OIR airstrikes conducted in each country. They were nearly evenly split, with 49.8 percent (or 2,941 airstrikes) carried out in Iraq, and 50.2 percent (or 2,963 airstrikes) in Syria. Therefore, the number of bombs dropped were also nearly the same in the two countries (12,095 in Iraq; 12,192 in Syria). Last year, the United States conducted approximately 67 percent of airstrikes in Iraq in 2016, and 96 percent of those in Syria.   Sources: Estimate based upon Combined Forces Air Component Commander 2011-2016 Airpower Statistics; CJTF-Operation Inherent Resolve Public Affairs Office strike release, December 31, 2016; New America (NA); Long War Journal (LWJ); The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ); Department of Defense press release; and U.S. Africa Command press release.   *Our data is based on OIR totals between January 10, 2016 and December 31, 2016

Conflict Armament Research, a UK organization that monitors armaments transfers and supply chains, has just published an important report, “Investigating Cross-Border Weapon Transfers in the Sahel.” The report was funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the European Union, and the German Foreign Office. It carries the normal disclaimer that it does not reflect “the positions of the UK Government, the European Union, or the German Federal Foreign Office.” More than fifty pages long, the report is thoroughly detailed. It is based on ten months of well-funded research with visits to Algeria, the Central African Republic, Chad, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Niger, and Syria. The report confirms that a flow of weapons from Libyan dictator Qaddafi’s stockpiles after his fall played a major role in the Tuareg and Islamist insurgencies in Mali in 2012. That same stockpile supplied weapons systems that included man-portable air defense systems to insurgents throughout the Sahel region. But, the report documents that weapons flows since 2011 are no longer predominately from Libya. Instead, the weapons now come from African countries with weak control of their own weapons stockpiles, notably the Central African Republic and Ivory Coast. Sudan has also been an important source since 2015 of weapons used by insurgents in the Sahel. The report posits that the jihadist attacks in 2015 and 2016 on hotels and government installations specifically in Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Ivory Coast also included weapons from a common source in the Middle East, these Iraqi assault rifles and Chinese-manufactured weapons are also used by the Islamic State. Conflict Armament Research’s report does not address Nigeria or Boko Haram. During the period up to 2015 when Boko Haram was amassing territory in northeast Nigeria, there was speculation as to where it was getting its weapons. One hypothesis was that they were coming primarily from local stockpiles inadequately controlled by the Nigerian government. Conflict Armament Research’s report shows a pattern that lends credibility to that hypothesis.

Reading selections for the weekend of October 22, 2016.

Assessing the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee’s report entitled “Libya: Examination of Intervention and Collapse and the UK’s Future Policy Options.”

This past summer has seen increased bloodshed in the Middle East, and it is getting harder to imagine viable solutions to resolving the conflicts across the region.

Reading selections for the weekend of August 19, 2016.

Reading selections for the weekend of June 17, 2016.

Especially after Boko Haram “face” Abubakar Shekau’s March 2015, pledge of allegiance to the self-proclaimed Islamic State, there has been speculation that the two movements are drawing closer together. However, there has up to now been little evidence of tactical or strategic cooperation. That could be changing. On April 21, the New York Times reported that U.S. Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, the commander of the United States Special Operations in Africa, claims a weapons convoy from the Islamic State in Libya had been moving toward the Lake Chad basin where Boko Haram has been active. The convoy was seized on April 7 near the Chadian border with Libya; the New York Times does not say what force was responsible for the seizure. Other U.S. military officials are cited as saying that “the convoy is one of the first concrete examples of a direct link between the two extremist groups.” They are also saying that the shipment consisted of small-caliber weapons, machine guns, and rifles. The New York Times also reports Nigerian Gen. Lamidi Oyebayo Adeosun, the Nigerian commander of the multinational force fighting Boko Haram around Lake Chad, as saying that his military is still trying to “to learn more about relations between Boko Haram and the Islamic State.” If the convoy is the first episode of a new pattern of cooperation between Boko Haram and the Islamic State, it is unalloyed bad news. It raises the possibility of future attacks on U.S. facilities, possibly even outside West Africa. The New York Times also commented on a dilemma the Obama administration faces: Boko Haram and the Islamic State feed off the economic disparities and bad governance “brought on by authoritarian governments in which strongmen cling to power.” Yet, a U.S. effort against the Islamic State and Boko Haram in the Lake Chad basin would involve ever closer cooperation with the authoritarian, “big man” governments in Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.

Despite the fact that a diplomatic effort to bring the chaos that has engulfed Libya since 2011 seems to have gained momentum, Libya is in for a long fight.

Reading selections for the weekend of April 8, 2016.