Andreas Krieg, Lecturer Defence Studies Department, King’s College London, Qatar Armed Forces
General Haftar’s announcement in February to topple the current Islamist government was discounted by many as mere rhetoric. In a country that has not come to a rest since the NATO-led toppling of Gadhafi in 2011, claims by yet another armed group to forcefully take control of the failed state are easily disregarded. However, since the self-declared ‘Libyan National Army’ attacked the parliament in Tripoli last week, it seems that Haftar and his men are a force to be reckoned with. His narrative of acting in the name of a Libyan volonté générale[1] to relieve the country from the grip of the ‘Islamist disease’ sounds familiar[2]. After the military’s intervention in Egypt last year, is just another Arab country falling prey to a reactionary anti-Islamist wave rolling from the Gulf over the Levant to Northern Africa?
At the height of the so-called Arab Spring, many Arabs took a pragmatic approach to governance. The initial popular support for Islamist groups was founded on the belief that they could cater most effectively for the people’s volonté générale. The West and the Arab World’s long-established regimes followed this development with suspicion fuelled by a mix of ignorance and Islamist paranoia. Would the era of secular pan-Arabism give way to an era of Islamist authoritarianism? External stakeholders must have looked at those countries in turmoil with relief when initial popular euphoria for Islamist organizations was replaced by a sober realization that Islamism was not the fast-acting panacea people wanted it to be. Growing public discontent in the Arab World seems to have empowered external stakeholders to put an end to the Islamist spook. In 2013 Saudi Arabia and Qatar scaled back their support for Islamist groups in Northern Syria, the UAE were starting to support the Egyptian military leadership around El Sisi in its fight against the Muslim Brotherhood, and the GCC remains divided about the extent to which Riyalpolitik is to sustain political Islam. The West, fuelled by a jihadi paranoia, put armed support for the Syrian opposition on the back burner, turned a blind eye to the Egyptian military’s intervention last summer as well as provided support for any ‘counterterrorist’ operation in Yemen and Northern Africa.
Against the backdrop of this regional trend to contain the spread of unregulated Islamism (as opposed to regulated Islamism in certain Gulf states), General Haftar is moving against a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government in Libya. He does so under the banner of ‘protecting the will of the people’. Sporadic expressions of sympathy during rallies in Tripoli are evidence enough for the once loyal companion of Captain Gadhafi that the Libyan people are on his side[3]. Similar to El Sisi’s move against Morsi last year, Haftar rhetorically takes the moral high ground of intervening in the civilian affairs of a failed state to restore law and order until an acceptable leader is found. However, a peek at the military intervention in Egypt last summer, shows that military praetorian interventions in state affairs seldom turn out to be the kind of altruistic arbitration for the greater societal good that they pretend to be. Instead, the military’s own political or corporate interests are what drives the military’s intervention. The interpretation of the greater societal good is subject to the individual considerations of senior military leaders who through their career have institutionalized a personal aversion to political Islam. As part of the old guard, the thought of Islamists holding major political power, is something that El Sisi in Egypt or Haftar in Libya refuse to come to terms with. Yet, political Islam might indeed be part of the public volonté générale in most Arab countries, cultivated over decades of authoritarian oppression and marginalization. By disregarding the Islamist element in Arab society, any corrective operation against those voted into power goes against the premise of pluralism. Given the post-revolutionary fragmentation of the region’s political landscape, pluralism ought to remain an enduring attribute of Arab politics – with it the respect for political Islam as a societal constant.
Traditionally, Libya has been a country defined by pluralism ever since the three regions of Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan were merged by Great Power interests into one political entity. The idea of a unitary nation state with one people united behind one civilian authority has been an alien concept for most Libyans. The post-2011 disintegration of central authority structure in Libya has made matters worse. Armed militias refusing to disarm govern their areas of responsibility independently as private fiefdoms without much interference of the central government. Therefore, Haftar’s argument that his ‘Libyan National Army’ operates selflessly in protection of an inclusive societal will to relieve the country from an Islamist terrorist threat appears to be not more than illusionary pseudo-liberal rhetoric. In reality, Haftar probably lacks the coercive means to seize and hold power considering the diversified Libyan security sector. Despite his attempt to emulate El Sisi’s 2013 intervention, Haftar cannot rely on the cohesion of an omnipotent military to overpower those ‘terrorist forces’ supporting the Islamist government. Unlike the Egyptian military’s praetorian capability to act as both arbitrator and ruler, Haftar’s role will most likely not exceed that of an arbitrator. Notwithstanding this fact, following the Egyptian model of purging society from an Islamist peril, Haftar’s agenda is likely dominated by the effectively unachievable goals of seizing power, coercively restoring law and order as well as holding on to political power without returning to the barracks any time soon. In so doing, there is little evidence that the ‘Libyan National Army’ is any more inclusive and selfless than any other armed militia or gang providing ‘public security’ in the streets of Libya today.
Nonetheless, similar to the quiet military intervention in Egypt just about a year ago, the West and key regional players remain silent[4]. Serving their strategic objective of containing unregulated Islamism, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and US might actually welcome Haftar’s offensive. Regardless of Libya’s public will, a Libya under tight military rule with little scope for Islamists to manoeuvre would first, soothe El Sisi’s and the UAE’s security paranoia; second, guarantee Saudi Arabia that Libya does not become another breeding ground for brotherhoodesque Islamists; while third, provide the West with the stability to ensure an unobstructed flow of hydrocarbons. While one is often inclined in the Middle East to jump from cui bono assumptions to conspirative conclusions, links between Haftar and the US do exist. After two decades in US exile Haftar has repeatedly been the man Langley calls upon. Involved in the failed attempt to topple Gadhafi in 1996 and reactivated during the revolution in 2011, Haftar seems to be an individual predestined to alter the status quo in Libya with the silent consent of the US. Post-Islamist stability in Libya ranks high on the agenda of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and neighbouring Egypt as well. While the UAE have been quite public about replacing Qatar as Egypt’s post-revolutionary patron, they so far have remained silent about Haftar’s ‘Operation Dignity’. However, the UAE’s backing of the few non-Islamist factions during the revolution in 2011, their known Islamist paranoia and their repeated pressure on El Sisi to clamp down on Islamists in Egypt, suggest that Haftar’s anti-Islamist objectives are well in line with the UAE’s foreign and security policy.
Even more, Haftar seems to ride on a reactionary wave of Islamist containment, which does not primarily emanate from the West but the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Among the various factions in Arab society today (first, the secular old guard; second, young liberals; third, the Islamist camp; and fourth, the politically apathetic majority), it is easy to declare that Islamism fails to represent society inclusively. However, one should not be blinded by the pretence of societal concern, aiming at safeguarding the people’s wills by restoring the secular mukhaberatstate (repressive police state) through military intervention. Haftar’s declared goal of protecting society and state from the Islamist peril, although widely delusional, does not serve society’s volonté générale but the interests of external stakeholders. Not only would it reverse the achievements of the revolution but also it would fail to create a sustainable government whose legitimacy is not so much based on external support as it is based on the will of the people. If there is one lesson to take away from the Arab Spring, it is that the empowerment of the individual to actively alter the political status quo is a privilege it will not surrender – even in face of coercive military force. Consequently, if the people’s volonté générale is as diverse as it pends out to be in Syria, Egypt or Libya, the only long-term solution is consensus, not the military’s imposition of the tyranny of the majority. That being said, Libya requires constructive external support to achieve consensus – not through coercion but mediation.
[1] The concept of the volonté générale is defined here based on Rousseau’s interpretation as the inclusive aggregate will of all individuals within a polity.
[3] http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/05/libya-general-says-rallies-give-him-mandate-2014525130541540.html
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