Column | How Libya once again pops up in the news

The Libya model had not really noticed me before, but I suddenly see it popping up here and there in the context of the negotiations between Iran and America about a new nuclear agreement. It stands for the nuclear disarmament For which Libyan leader Gaddafi decided in 2003, under pressure from international sanctions but also for fear that America would also overwhelm his ‘state of the masses’ after Saddam Hesseins Iraq. His complete nuclear program went out, in exchange for Western economic rapprochement. It didn’t come or hardly, but what did come was the so -called Arab Spring, which skipped from Tunisia in 2011.

The question is: would Gaddafi’s nuclear program-which by the way have not yet resulted in a weapon-have prevented the then Western and Arab Allies from supporting the Libyan spring rebels from the air? We can disagree on that, but the air offensive was the decisive factor in Gaddafi’s fall. Note on the basis of the Responsibility to Protect,,  » The international promise From 2005 to prevent genocides and such atrocities. The R2P! Totally forgotten! Gaza and Sudan prove that.

These days, the Libya model is being propagated by the proponents of total de-nuclearization of Iran; The Israeli government and kindred spirits in the supporters of President Trump. Technically, the use of the term Libya model seems to me to be counterproductive. The fate of Gaddafi and Libya cannot be an example for Iranian leaders.

Ah, the Arab Spring. He has led to nothing good: three wars (Yemen, Syria and Sudan) and two heavier dictatorships (Egypt and Tunisia). Libya has become a failed state, with an internationally recognized government in Tripoli in the West, and a non-recognized in the east of the country, and, moreover, powerful militias in the West.

In the midst of the violence in the Middle East, Libya hardly makes any more news today, not interesting except occasionally as a transit country for African migrants on their way to Europe. Gaddafi already used the migrants to squeeze Europe: in 2008 the EU paid him 500 million euros to keep migrants away, and in 2010 he demanded another 5 billion. Otherwise Europe would become « a second Africa », he threatened to visit Rome, and that africanization of Europe has remained our mighty. The migrants, including refugees, are sometimes forgotten, are now a source of income for the militias that actually form the beneficiaries of European money to them, often locked up in horrible detention camps, to keep the Mediterranean Sea away.

I will continue on Libya (more in the news because of rarely). Three weeks ago the regime in Tripoli forbade Ten international aid organizationsincluding Doctors Without Borders, Care and the Norwegian Refugee Council, to be active in the country for longer. The argument: that by eating African migrants, providing clothing and medicines, encouraged them to stay, with the aim of changing the ethnic composition of Libya. There you have the surrounding theory again (which is also popular here). The measure coincided with An urgent profession to provide more support in Europe. Consider Gaddafi’s extortion policy.

The negotiations between Iran and Trump are now positive according to statements from both sides after the second round, last Saturday in Rome. « We have made good progress, » said an American spokesman. The Iranian minister Araghchi even spoke of « optimism » albeit « with a lot of caution. » They continue to talk in Oman. The Libya model has not (yet) been discussed.

Carolien Roelants is Middle East expert. She writes a column every other week.

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