With the end of the Gadhafi
regime seemingly in sight, it is an opportune time to step back and revisit one
of the themes we discussed at the beginning of the crisis: What
comes after the Gadhafi regime?
As the experiences of recent
years in Iraq and Afghanistan have vividly illustrated, it is far easier to
depose a regime than it is to govern a country. It has also proved to be very
difficult to build a stable government from the remnants of a long-established
dictatorial regime. History is replete with examples of coalition fronts that
united to overthrow an oppressive regime but then splintered and fell into
internal fighting once the regime they fought against was toppled. In some
cases, the power struggle resulted in a civil war more brutal than the one that
brought down the regime. In other cases, this factional strife resulted in
anarchy that lasted for years as the iron fist that kept ethnic and sectarian
tensions in check was suddenly removed, allowing those issues to re-emerge.
As Libya enters this critical
juncture and the National Transitional Council (NTC) transitions from breaking
things to building things and running a country, there will be important fault
lines to watch in order to envision what Libya will become.
Divisions
One of the biggest problems
that will confront the Libyan rebels as they make the transition from rebels to
rulers are the country’s
historic ethnic, tribal and regional splits. While the Libyan people are
almost entirely Muslim and predominately Arab, there are several divisions
among them. These include ethnic differences in the form of Berbers in the
Nafusa Mountains, Tuaregs in the southwestern desert region of Fezzan and Toubou
in the Cyrenaican portion of the Sahara Desert. Among the Arabs who form the
bulk of the Libyan population, there are also hundreds of different tribes and
multiple dialects of spoken Arabic.
Perhaps most prominent of
these fault lines is the one that exists between the ancient regions of
Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. The Cyrenaica region has a long and rich history,
dating back to the 7th century B.C. The region has seen many rulers, including
Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, Italians and the British. Cyrenaica has long
been at odds with the rival province of Tripolitania, which was founded by the
Phoenicians but later conquered by Greeks from Cyrenaica. This duality was
highlighted by the fact that from the time of Libya’s independence through the
reign of King Idris I (1951-1969), Libya effectively had two capitals. While
Tripoli was the official capital in the west, Benghazi, King Idris’ power base,
was the de facto capital in the east. It was only after the 1969 military coup
that brought Col. Moammar Gadhafi to power that Tripoli was firmly established
as the seat of power over all of Libya. Interestingly, the fighting on the
eastern front in the Libyan civil war had been stalled for several months in
the approximate area of the divide between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania.
After the 1969 coup, Gadhafi
not only established Tripoli as the capital of Libya and subjugated Benghazi,
he also used his authoritarian regime and the country’s oil revenues to
control or co-opt Libya’s estimated 140 tribes, many members of which are
also members of Libya’s minority Berber, Tuareg and Toubou ethnic groups.
It is no mistake that the
Libyan revolution began in Cyrenaica, which has long bridled under Gadhafi’s
control and has been the scene of several smaller and unsuccessful uprisings.
The jihadist Libyan
Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) has also traditionally been based in
eastern Cyrenaican cities such as Darnah and Benghazi, where anti-Gadhafi
sentiment and economic hardship marked by high levels of unemployment provided
a fertile recruiting ground. Many of these jihadists have joined the
anti-Gadhafi rebels fighting on the eastern front.
But the rebels
were by no means confined to Cyrenaica. Anti-Gadhafi rebels in Misurata
waged a long and bloody fight against government forces to gain control of the
city, and while the Cyrenaican rebels were bogged down in the Ajdabiya/Marsa el
Brega area, Berber guerrillas based in the Nafusa Mountains applied steady
pressure to the Libyan forces in the west and eventually marched on Tripoli
with Arab rebels from coastal towns such as Zawiya, where earlier uprisings in
February were brutally defeated by the regime prior to the NATO intervention.
These groups of armed rebels
have fought independently on different fronts during the civil war and have had
varying degrees of success. The different roles these groups have played and,
more important, their perceptions of those roles will likely create friction
when it comes time to allocate the spoils of the Libyan war and delineate the
power structure that will control Libya going forward.
Fractured Alliances
While the NTC is an umbrella
group comprising most of the groups that oppose Gadhafi, the bulk of the NTC
leadership hails from Cyrenaica. In its present state, the NTC faces a
difficult task in balancing all the demands and interests of the various
factions that have combined their efforts to oust the Gadhafi regime. Many past
revolutions have reached a precarious situation once the main unifying goal has
been achieved: With the regime overthrown, the various factions involved in the
revolution begin to pursue their own interests and objectives, which often run
contrary to those of other factions.
A prime example of the
fracturing of a rebel coalition occurred after the fall of the Najibullah
regime in Afghanistan in 1992, when the various warlords involved in
overthrowing the regime became locked in a struggle for power that plunged the
country into a period of destructive anarchy. While much of Afghanistan was
eventually conquered by the Taliban movement — seen by many terrorized
civilians as the country’s salvation — the Taliban were still at war with the
Northern Alliance when the United States invaded the country in October 2001.
A similar descent into anarchy
followed the 1991 overthrow of Somali dictator Mohamed Said Barre. The
fractious nature of Somali regional and clan interests combined with
international meddling has made it impossible for any power to assert control
over the country. Even the jihadist group al
Shabaab has been wracked by Somali divisiveness.
But this dynamic does not
happen only in countries with strong clan or tribal structures. It was also
clearly demonstrated following the 1979 broad-based revolution in Nicaragua,
when the Sandinista National Liberation Front turned on its former partners and
seized power. Some of those former partners, such as revolutionary hero Eden
Pastora, would go on to join the “contras” and fight a civil war against the
Sandinistas that wracked Nicaragua until a 1988 cease-fire.
In most of these past cases,
including Afghanistan, Somalia and Nicaragua, the internal fault lines were
seized upon by outside powers, which then attempted to manipulate one of the
factions in order to gain influence in the country. In Afghanistan, for
example, warlords backed by Pakistan, Iran, Russia and India were all vying for
control of the country. In Somalia, the Ethiopians, Eritreans and Kenyans have
been heavily involved, and in Nicaragua, contra groups backed by the United
States opposed the Cuban- and Soviet-backed Sandinistas.
Outside influence exploiting
regional and tribal fault lines is also a potential danger in Libya. Egypt is a
relatively powerful neighbor that has long tried to meddle in Libya and has
long coveted its energy wealth. While Egypt is currently focused on its own
internal issues as well as the Israel/Palestinian issue, its attention could
very well return to Libya in the future. Italy, the United Kingdom and France
also have a history of involvement in Libya. Its provinces were Italian
colonies from 1911 until they were conquered by allied troops in the North
African campaign in 1943. The British then controlled Tripolitania and
Cyrenaica and the French controlled Fezzan province until Libyan independence
in 1951. It is no accident that France and the United Kingdom led the calls for
NATO intervention in Libya following the February uprising, and the Italians
became very involved once they jumped on the bandwagon. It is believed that
oil companies from these countries as well as the United States and Canada will
be in a prime position to continue to work Libya’s oil fields. Qatar, Turkey
and the United Arab Emirates also played important roles in supporting the
rebels, and it is believed they will continue to have influence with the rebel
leadership.
Following the discovery of oil
in Libya in 1959, British, American and Italian oil companies were very
involved in developing the Libyan
oil industry. In response to this involvement, anti-Western sentiment
emerged as a significant part of Gadhafi’s Nasserite ideology and rhetoric, and
there has been near-constant friction between Gadhafi and the West. Due to this
friction, Gadhafi has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Soviet Union
and later Russia, which has supplied him with the bulk of his weaponry. It is
believed that Russia, which seemed to place its bet on Gadhafi’s survival and
has not recognized the NTC, will be among the big losers of influence in Libya
once the rebels assume power. However, it must be remembered that the Russians
are quite adept at human intelligence and they maintain varying degrees of
contact with some of the former Gadhafi officials who have defected to the
rebel side. Hence, the Russians cannot be completely dismissed.
China also has long been
interested in the resources of Africa and North Africa, and Gadhafi has
resisted what he considers Chinese economic imperialism in the region. That
said, China has a lot of cash to throw around, and while it has no substantial
stake in Libya’s oil fields, it reportedly has invested some $20 billion in
Libya’s energy sector, and large Chinese engineering firms have been involved
in construction and oil infrastructure projects in the country. China remains
heavily dependent on foreign oil, most of which comes from the Middle East, so
it has an interest in seeing the political stability in Libya that will allow
the oil to flow. Chinese cash could also look very appealing to a rebel
government seeking to rebuild — especially during a period of economic
austerity in Europe and the United States, and the Chinese have already made
inroads with the NTC by providing monetary aid to Benghazi.
The outside actors seeking to
take advantage of Libya’s fault lines do not necessarily need to be
nation-states. It is clear that jihadist groups such as the Libyan
Islamic Fighting Group and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb see the tumult in
Libya as a huge opportunity. The iron fist that crushed Libyan jihadists
for so long has been destroyed and the government that replaces the Gadhafi
regime is likely to be weaker and less capable of stamping down the flames of
jihadist ideology.
There are some who have
posited that the Arab Spring has destroyed the ideology of jihadism, but that
is far from the case. Even had the Arab Spring ushered in substantial change in
the Arab World — and we believe it has
resulted in far less change than many have ascribed to it — it is
difficult to destroy an ideology overnight. Jihadism will continue to affect
the world for years to come, even if it does begin to decline in popularity.
Also, it is important to remember that the Arab Spring movement may limit the
spread of jihadist ideology in situations where people believe they have more
freedom and economic opportunity after the Arab Spring uprisings. But in places
where people perceive their conditions have worsened, or where the Arab Spring
brought little or no change to their conditions, their disillusionment could
create a ripe recruitment opportunity for jihadists.
The jihadist
ideology has indeed fallen on hard times in recent years, but there
remain many hardcore, committed jihadists who will not easily abandon their
beliefs. And it is interesting to note that a surprisingly large number of
Libyans have long been in senior al Qaeda positions, and in places like
Iraq, Libyans provided a disproportionate number of foreign fighters to
jihadist groups.
It is unlikely that such
individuals will abandon their beliefs, and these beliefs dictate that they
will become disenchanted with the NTC leadership if it opts for anything short
of a government based on a strict interpretation of Shariah. This jihadist
element of the rebel coalition appears to have reared its head recently with
the assassination
of former NTC military head Abdel Fattah Younis in late July (though
we have yet to see solid, confirmed reporting of the circumstances surrounding
his death).
Between the seizure of former
Gadhafi arms depots and the arms provided to the rebels by outside powers, Libya
is awash with weapons. If the NTC fractures like past rebel coalitions, it
could set the stage for a long and bloody civil war — and provide an excellent
opportunity to jihadist elements. At present, however, it is too soon to
forecast exactly what will happen once the rebels assume power. The key thing
to watch for now is pressure along the fault lines where Libya’s future will
likely be decided.
Scott Stewart, Stratfor, Aug.
24, 2011, republished with permission of Stratfor
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