March 02, 2020 "Information Clearing House" -  A new report from the United Nations bluntly conveys the extent of the continuing chaos in Libya and the suffering it has caused. Yacoub El Hillo, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Libya, stated that the impact on civilians of the country’s nine-year internecine war “is incalculable.” That horrible situation is the long-term outcome of U.S. and NATO actions, and it is well past time that guilty officials are held accountable for their disastrous policies.

Libya has been an arena of strife ever since the United States and its NATO allies helped insurgents overthrow Moammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011. But the U.N. report suggests that matters have grown noticeably worse over the past year. In the spring of 2019, the Benghazi-based Libyan National Army (LNA), led by one-time CIA asset Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar (sometimes spelled Hifter), launched a military offensive against the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), based in Tripoli. Haftar’s attack initially seemed likely to prevail, but it soon bogged down and a bloody stalemate ensued.

The Libya conflict has increasingly become a proxy war involving Middle Eastern powers and Russia. Haftar receives weapons, funds, and other backing from several countries, most notably Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. In addition to the diplomatic and financial support it gets from the U.N. and most Western governments, the GNA is obtaining ever-stronger backing from Turkey. Earlier this month, Ankara significantly escalated its involvement when its parliament authorized the deployment of Turkish forces to Libya. Russian mercenaries are already fighting there on behalf of Haftar. 

The stakes are higher than just a mundane struggle for political power. Libya sits atop Africa’s largest supply of oil and natural gas, worth tens of billions of dollars. Both the LNA and GNA have maneuvered to use that oil as a weapon against the opposing side. 

U.S. policy seems muddled and ambivalent. Washington still recognizes the GNA as Libya’s “legitimate” government, but the Trump administration has sent mixed signals. After a telephone call between Trump and Haftar in April 2019, the U.S. seemed implicitly to back the LNA’s offensive against Tripoli. More recently, U.S. officials called on Haftar to halt the offensive. Yet when peace talks between the GNA and LNA broke down, the administration sent U.S. Ambassador to Libya Richard Norland to meet with Haftar even before contacting the Tripoli regime it officially recognizes.

There is little question that today’s Libya is a chaotic mess. Once again, however, Western news outlets are trying to portray a complex foreign conflict as a contest between good and evil.