The Struggle For Libya

This book offers a novel, incisive and wide-ranging account of Libya's '17 February Revolution' by tracing how critical towns, communities and political groups helped to shape its course. Each community, whether geographical (e.g. Misrata, Zintan), tribal/communal (e.g. Beni Walid) or political (e.g. the Muslim Brotherhood) took its own path into the uprisings and subsequent conflict of 2011, according to their own histories and relationship to Muammar Qadhafi's regime. The story of each group is told by the authors, based on reportage and expert analysis, from the outbreak of protests in Benghazi in February 2011 through to the transitional period following the end of fighting in October 2011. They describe the emergence of Libya's new politics through the unique stories of those who made it happen, or those who fought against it. The Libyan Revolution and its Aftermath brings together leading journalists, academics, and specialists, each with extensive field experience amidst the constituencies they depict, drawing on interviews with fighters, politicians and civil society leaders who have contributed their own account of events to this volume.

The struggles for Libya provides a comprehensive coverage/analysis of the conflict in Libya, its actors and their goals, local, regional, and external dynamics and how it escalates to a degree that Libya has fallen into a failed state. In the book, there is deep anatomy of the fragmentation process that took place since the 2011 revolution and how competing and, in most cases, conflicting opponents were intervening to share the wealth of Libya. It is clear from reading the book that local forces were, to great extent, coopted by external powers to fight for domination and possession of power notwithstanding the safety and security of Libyans. While external intervention in 2011 was a necessity to topple the Gaddafi regime, later such presents ignited and escalated the civil war. However, lately, the United Nations played and still plays a constructive role in making reconciliation leading to the formation of the national government and national assembly. The struggle for Libya presents a real case study of the transformation from overt conflict and animosity to a national consensus. It provides students, media professionals, academicians and policymakers with tools and processes regarding conflicts, negotiations, compromises, and accords. It is important to think of Libya now as a post-conflict state going through nation-building and regaining relative sovereignty.

A riveting, beautifully crafted account of Libya after Qadhafi. The death of Colonel Muammar Qadhafi freed Libya from forty-two years of despotic rule, raising hopes for a new era. But in the aftermath, the country descended into bitter rivalries and civil war, paving the way for the Islamic State and a catastrophic migrant crisis. In a fast-paced narrative that blends frontline reporting, analysis, and history, Frederic Wehrey tells the story of what went wrong. An Arabic-speaking Middle East scholar, Wehrey interviewed the key actors in Libya and paints vivid portraits of lives upended by a country in turmoil: the once-hopeful activists murdered or exiled, revolutionaries transformed into militia bosses or jihadist recruits, an aging general who promises salvation from the chaos in exchange for a return to the old authoritarianism. He traveled where few Westerners have gone, from the shattered city of Benghazi, birthplace of the revolution, to the lawless Sahara, to the coastal stronghold of the Islamic State in Qadhafi’s hometown of Sirt. He chronicles the American and international missteps after the dictator’s death that hastened the country’s unraveling. Written with bravura, based on daring reportage, and informed by deep knowledge, TheBurning Shores is the definitive account of Libya’s fall.

The 2011 Libyan Uprisings is a thematic investigation of how pre-existing social, regional, tribal, and religious fissures influenced the trajectory of the 2011 Libyan Uprisings and an analysis of what this means for the post-Qadhafi future.

We no longer inhabit a world governed by international coordination, a unified NATO bloc, or an American hegemon. Traditionally, the decline of one empire leads to a restoration in the balance of power, via a struggle among rival systems of order. Yet this dynamic is surprisingly absent today; instead, the superpowers have all, at times, sought to promote what Jason Pack terms the 'Enduring Disorder'. He contends that Libya's ongoing conflict-more so than the civil wars in Yemen, Syria, Venezuela or Ukraine-constitutes the ideal microcosm in which to identify the salient features of this new era of geopolitics. The country's post-Qadhafi trajectory has been molded by the stark absence of coherent international diplomacy; while Libya's incremental implosion has precipitated cross-border contagion, further corroding global institutions and international partnership. Pack draws on over two decades of research in and on Libya and Syria to highlight the Kafkaesque aspects of today's global affairs. He shows how even the threats posed by the Arab Spring, and the Benghazi assassination of US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, couldn't occasion a unified Western response. Rather, they have further undercut global collaboration, demonstrating the self-reinforcing nature of the progressively collapsing world order.

Shortlisted for the Conflict Research Society's 2021 Book of the Year Prize Shortlisted for the British-Kuwait Friendship Society 2021 Book Prize After the overthrow of the Qadhafi regime in 2011, Libya witnessed a dramatic breakdown of centralized power. Countless local factions carved up the country into a patchwork of spheres of influence. Almost no nationwide or even regional organizations emerged, and no national institutions survived the turbulent descent into renewed civil war. Only the leader of one armed coalition, Khalifa Haftar, managed to overcome competitors and centralize authority over eastern Libya. But tenacious resistance from armed groups in western Libya blocked Haftar's attempt to seize power in the capital Tripoli. Rarely does political fragmentation occur as radically as in Libya, where it has been the primary obstacle to the re-establishment of central authority. This book analyzes the forces that have shaped the country's trajectory since 2011. Confounding widely held assumptions about the role of Libya's tribes in the revolution, Wolfram Lacher shows how war transformed local communities and explains why Khalifa Haftar has been able to consolidate his sway over the northeast. Based on hundreds of interviews with key actors in the conflict, Lacher advances an approach to the study of civil wars that places the transformation of social ties at the centre of analysis.

This book charts in detail the West's response, particularly that of the US, to Libya's possible involvement in the bombing of the Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie in 1988. It suggests that this response cannot be fully understood without consideration of the United States as sole military superpower in the New World Order. Geoff Simons argues that the US decision to target Libya, and to involve the UN in this policy, has more to do with the realpolitik objectives of a hegemonic power than with the disinterested use of international law to combat terrorism. The Lockerbie issue is set against a detailed history of Libya from the earliest times to the present, with emphasis on Libya's colonial past, the pivotal significance of Libya's oil resources, the character of the Gaddafi revolution, and the consequent impact on relations with the United States.

Political Rationale and International Consequences of the War in Libya focuses on the international intervention in Libya in 2011, and tries to answer two broad questions; (1) What was the political rationale for the various actors to proceed as they did in the lead-up and conduct of the military intervention in Libya?, (2) What are the consequences of the UN-authorized military intervention in Libya? R2P was the public raison d'etre of the war, and an important legitimizing factor of the intervention. Still, the humanitarian situation was a necessary, but not in and by itself an adequate precondition for intervention. A number of factors coalesced to enable the intervention. While the humanitarian situation triggered the intervention, in reality a variety of national interests governed the approach by the various international actors, and more often than not, these motives were not rooted in the particular circumstances in Libya. The book offers a combination of unique perspectives. While the perspectives of the US, France, and the UK on the Libyan Crisis/War have been well documented, the Arabic and Scandinavian political and military dynamics have been much less so. While the perspectives of NATO, the UN, and R2P have been debated, the view from the Arab League and African Union (AU) have been less in focus. The volume redresses that imbalance and offers the most broad-ranging analysis yet of a key moment in recent international relations.

A vivid and astonishing reckoning with the Gaddafi regime, from one of our most acclaimed and gifted international journalists The fall of Muammar Gaddafi, who was for forty-two years the great autocrat-madman on the world stage, is among the past decade’s most dramatic turning points. In Lindsey Hilsum, a renowned British correspondent for over a quarter century, the end of the Gaddafi regime has found its definitive chronicler. Following six individuals living through this time of unprecedented danger and opportunity, Hilsum tells the full story of the Libyan revolution—from the uprising of the early months through the toppling of Gaddafi’s regime and his savage death in the desert. For the paperback edition, Hilsum brings her analysis up to the present day—with new material on the killing of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, the July elections, and the Benghazi anti-militia demonstrations—and explores what the future of Libya will bring.