Karl Marx noted that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. This famous observation perfectly describes the West's recent interventions in Libya. It is five years since the Anglo-French decision to remove former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi led to the country's political collapse and the emergence of an ungoverned space dominated by militias. That was the tragedy. At the end of last year, the British and French intervened again. Acting through the United Nations, they played a role in removing Libya's democratically elected government led by Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thani. The hapless Al-Thani was duly sidelined, and a new prime minister based in Tripoli, Fayez Al-Sarraj, was installed as the appointed leader of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA). Unfortunately, it is this intervention which has now ended up in farce. Al-Sarraj is a decent man who was dragooned into the job by the US. However, he has no political background. He rarely, as far as one can discern, travels to the east of Libya in his capacity as prime minister. His writ does not extend any further than the tightly guarded naval base in Tripoli where (wisely) he prefers to stay when he visits the country he supposedly governs. As a general rule, he (even more wisely) prefers to conduct meetings outside Libya, more often than not in Tunis. But Al-Sarraj should not be blamed for avoiding his native Libya, as parts of it are immensely dangerous. Some of the Libyan militias have sought to obtain an element of international legitimacy by officially recognising the GNA, but in practice they ignore it anyway. Other militias don't care at all for the supposed Libyan government. Al-Sarraj also would not survive if he attempted to assert the authority of the GNA. After all, he controls no military or police forces. It is understood that he has told confidantes that he longs to stand down, but that the Americans won't let him do so. Moreover, it is not just the Libyan militias that treat Al-Sarraj and his GNA with contempt. The sad truth is that nobody who matters in Libya takes the GNA seriously. The Central Bank is in continual dispute with Al-Sarraj. So is the National Oil Company. As for the Libyan Investment Authority, the country's Supreme Court met in Tripoli on 28 October to consider who has the right to appoint its directors. The Court is due to give its formal decision on 14 November, but it is expected that it will state that the only legitimate government in Libya is the authority of the House of Representatives presently based in Tobruk in the east of the country. The Court is respected – last year it ruled against the Misrata militia even though this controlled most of Tripoli – and it has shown that it is prepared to take independent decisions based strictly on the Libyan constitution. Meanwhile, it is important to remember that despite official pronouncements the British government – for all its statements of support – is playing a double game in Libya. In recent months, British special forces have reportedly been fighting on the same side as the GNA against the Islamic State (IS) group in Sirte in Libya. Meanwhile, British special forces have also based themselves in a French-led multinational military operations centre in Benghazi supporting renegade Libyan general Khalifa Haftar, who is on the opposite side to the GNA government in Tripoli. British forces are thus on both sides at once as the GNA attempts to assert its control over Libya. This reflects a shambolic policy lacking in integrity, strategy or coherence. In fact, the GNA is mostly a fiction, even though Britain and the US continue to pretend that it is real. This became obvious when British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson hosted a meeting for Al-Sarraj, as the prime minister-designate of the GNA, with US Secretary of State John Kerry and others recently to address the mounting economic crisis in Libya. Johnson proposed the creation of a new body called the Higher Investment Council, suggesting that this should rank above all the other economic institutions of Libya, including the National Oil Company, the Libyan Investment Authority and the Central Bank. But this attempt to award the GNA sovereignty over the country's finances was rejected by everyone present except the US, Italy, UK and Al-Sarraj himself. The event was a farce because it was based on the assumption that the GNA possesses an authority that it lacks. More recently, the International Crisis Group (ICG), an international NGO, produced a well-informed report into the Libyan calamity entitled “The Libyan Political Agreement: Time for a Reset” that recalls the high hopes with which the UN set out to rebuild Libya ahead of the creation of the GNA 12 months ago. “A legitimate, sovereign government could restart oil production and exports, restart the economy, begin demobilising and reintegrating armed groups, and call on the international community to root the Islamic State out of Sirte,” the ICG report said. This beautifully researched document is replete with distressing details about the failure of the Al-Sarraj government, revealing, for example, that no Libyan cabinet meeting has taken place since last June. It quotes one foreign observer as saying that “we had very low expectations to start with, but we see that the Council is not undertaking even minimal actions.” It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the GNA and Al-Sarraj are now the hostages of the Tripoli militias and that Libya needs to start again. The early departure of foreign forces would be a good beginning. The writer was British Press Awards Columnist of the Year in 2013.
