US President Donald Trump was forced into making a humiliating climbdown statement today after yesterday’s ‘‘Libya is a sh**house’’ statement.
Those with sense in his administration quickly realised what a faux pas he had committed and scrambled to force him into releasing a back peddling statement.
Despite this, the climbdown statement raises many interesting issues.
It is NATO that helped proactively, and decisively, to remove Libya’s 42-year Qaddafi regime during Libya’s 2011 revolution. But the international community, including the US, were not as proactive in Libya’s messy post-revolution state-building and democratisation process.
If Trump invested as heavily, politically and financially, in resurrecting Libya as he has done in destroying Iran, for example, things could be different. If the US, and today, Trump, invested since 2011, as proactively and heavily in the DDR process of Libya’s militias, things could be different today.
If the US and Trump invested as heavily in preventing foreign states, some of which are allies or friends of the US, from interfering in Libya, things could have been different.
The problem is that once the US defeated ISIS in Libya, its proactive support and political investment in Libya waned.
If the US and Trump fully and exclusively supported the internationally recognised Libyan government in Tripoli rather than undermining it by ‘‘hedging its bets’’ and ‘‘playing both sides’’, things could have been different.
If the US fully and exclusively supported the various announced UNSMIL political roadmaps since 2011 – rather than undermining them under the table with alternative plans, things could have been different.
As for the ‘‘Libya cannot remain a corridor for illegal migration’’ statement. It is not Libya’s fault that ex-colonial sub-Saharan African states are underdeveloped, and their people seek to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean to get to a better life in Europe.
If the developed world, including the US, and especially former colonial European states, accepted their moral responsibility and invested more in their ex-colonies, Libya would not have to deal with the illegal migration problem.
Despite the EU creating the EU Border Assistance Mission in Libya (EUBAM), this agency has done very little in actually preventing illegal migrants at source from crossing Libya to gain access to, and to cross, the Mediterranean.
If the US and European states confronted illegal migration at Libya’s southern borders with the same intensity as say the Iran war – things may have been different.
Here is President Trumps climbdown statement in full:
‘‘The Libyan people are proud, resilient, hospitable, and deserving of peace and prosperity. The United States and Libya share a strong and enduring partnership in combating terrorism, building on our historic success in defeating ISIS in Libya together. We respect the Libyan people and the sacrifices that brave Libyans made fighting ISIS, the common enemy of both our peoples, but Libya cannot remain a corridor for illegal migration, and this must end now.
The United States remains firmly committed to strengthening our bilateral relationship, supporting the long-awaited unification of Libya and Libya’s institutions, and standing with the Libyan people as they transition toward successful national elections. The Libyan people have been victims of terrorism and foreign meddling for years. I want them to unite, take back their sovereignty, and have the peaceful, prosperous future they deserve! President DONALD J. TRUMP.’’
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