NATO’s Unnecessary War on Libya

TEHRAN (FNA)- Libya is no longer a normal state ever since NATO intervened to overthrow the internationally recognized government in 2011.

Libya has failed to produce a government that is capable of unifying the nation but instead has been home to rival regimes, multiple terrorist organisations, slave traders and gangs of both local and foreign bandits who are all wrestling for control over the country's natural resources.

At present, the wider region surrounding Tripoli is the location of a pitched battle between the Western-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Libyan National Army led by Khalifa Haftar, a field marshal who is backed by a Libyan government based in the eastern city of Tobruk. 

Earlier this week, Haftar ordered to advance on the GNA-held Tripoli. UN Secretary General António Guterres was in the city during the fighting with the mission to rally support for a national reconciliation conference but was unable to bring about a ceasefire. The battle continues to rage.

Haftar is, in fact, a US citizen who first moved to America in 1990 after deserting his duties in Libya. Haftar's current Libyan National Army is backed by major US allies in the Arab world including Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. And yet, Haftar's enemy is a Tripoli-based government that has received diplomatic recognition from Washington and the European Union.

As Libya was not threatening any foreign power in 2011, NATO had no business in becoming involved in the country's domestic affairs. And yet, the fanaticism of the US, UK and French leaders of the time led to a military intervention that even Barack Obama later admitted was the biggest mistake of his presidency.

This colonial adventure was one that produced similar results to US-NATO interventions in many other countries. Iraq remains a much more dangerous, less united and materially poorer place than it was prior to the US led war of 2003. The republics of the former Yugoslavia have likewise had difficulty since the 1990s. Ukraine and Syria remain bitterly divided places that are both materially poorer and far more dangerous than they were before major western nations decided to meddle in their internal affairs.

One can therefore objectively say that every time the US and company use their military might or the forces of political meddling to change the internal conditions of a foreign country, things uniformly become worse.

Libya remains one of the prime examples of a nation that has been utterly devastated by the regime changers’ interventionism. Now, the new battle between a US-backed government and a US citizen backed by the US and allies reveals just how inexplicable and dangerous the divisions of Libya have become in the aftermath of a totally unnecessary US-backed NATO war.