Obama’s Murky Libya Policy

We’re going to have to encourage some of the countries inside of the Gulf who have, I think, influence over the various factions inside of Libya to be more cooperative themselves,” was President Obama’s insight Friday into the country’s eight-month-old civil war. Since Qatar has been supporting the Islamist militias who seized Tripoli while the United Arab Emirates has been supporting the internationally recognized Libyan government in Tobruk, it’s not clear why it has taken Obama until now to realize this.

In the coming weeks, it’s possible that the blessedly half-hearted civil war in Libya will sputter to a close through UN-mediated talks that have been taking place in Algeria and Morocco. The aim has been the formation of a “unity government,” ending the war between Libya’s elected, internationally recognized government in Tobruk, under Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani, and the coalition of Islamist militiamen called Fajr, or Dawn, who took control of Tripoli in August 2014. While the legitimate government has recently made battlefield gains, the country of 6 million remains divided about evenly between the two sides, and even staunch supporters think Fajr could last several more months. About half the country supports Fajr due to complex city-state alliances, including many who don’t consider themselves Islamists. But the core leadership of Fajr is Islamist, with a substantial number of extremists.