Bold Action Needed

By Jason Pack

Jason Pack is the author of Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder and is a Senior Analyst for Emerging Challenges at the NATO Defense College Foundation.

Libya’s failure to build a democratic, stable, constitutional, and sovereign government in the wake of the anti-Gadhafi uprisings in 2011 has not been the fault of the United States or any other Western power. Furthermore, the United States never really intervened in Libya, nor did it lead (from behind or otherwise) international efforts to oust President Muammar Gadhafi and stabilize the country in his wake. Rather, international actions were led by France, Qatar, and the UK. They responded to the landmark statement of the Arab League on March 12, 2011 calling for a No Fly Zone over Libya, by supporting a UN resolution (1973) to protect civilians from massacre and the forces of the anti-Gadhafi uprisings from being crushed. 

This was not an intervention, nor did nations overstep the UN resolution in pursuit of a covert regime change operation, as Russia and other anti-Western political commentators allege. The aerial support that international forces provided had been requested by the National Transitional Council (NTC) – the umbrella grouping of those anti-Gadhafi rebels who sought to govern a liberated Libya and would later be acknowledged as Libya’s sovereign government. The No Fly Zone that came out of UNSCR 1973 – the security council resolution which authorized military action in Libya – was, ipso facto, not an intervention, because it acted exactly in line with the NTC’s and the Arab League’s invitation and deliberately did not alter the prevailing internal dynamics between the myriad mutually antagonistic rebel groups.

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