America Has no Dog in the Libya Fight

The debacle created in Libya by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton continues to this day. The country has devolved into chaos, killing thousands, and allowing an uninterrupted flow of migrants to flood across the Mediterranean to Southern Europe. At The National Interest, Ted Galen Carpenter says the Trump administration “should learn from the blunders of its predecessor and resist any temptation to meddle further.” He writes (abridged):

The Western-created disaster in Libya continues to grow worse. Fighting between Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) and the even more misnamed Government of National Accord (GNA) has intensified in and around Tripoli.

The United States also cannot resist the urge to meddle. Worse, U.S. officials seemingly can’t even decide which faction it wants to back.

Neither the Trump administration nor the humanitarian crusaders in Barack Obama’s administration who caused the calamity in the first place seem inclined to advocate a more cautious, restrained U.S. policy.

In her new book, The Education of an Idealist, Power (Samantha) takes no responsibility whatever for the Libya debacle. Indeed, flippant might be too generous a term for her treatment of the episode.

Power, Clinton, Obama and other proponents of ousting Qaddafi turned Libya into a chaotic Somalia on the Mediterranean, and the blood of innocents shed since 2011 is on their hands. Given the stark split within the president’s national security team, the Libya intervention was especially reckless and unjustified. The default option in such a case should have been against intervention, not plunging ahead.

The Trump administration should learn from the blunders of its predecessor and resist any temptation to meddle further. America does not have a dog in the ongoing fight between Haftar and the GNA, and we should simply accept whatever outcome emerges. Washington’s arrogant interference has caused enough suffering in Libya already.

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