Libya

Libya’s Faustian Bargains: Breaking the Appeasement Cycle

Many Libya observers cite the Qaddafi-era legacy of weak institutions and the conduct of the 2011 revolutionary war as key obstacles to the country’s democratic transition. The new Libyan authorities’ policy of appeasement, however, is just as much a factor in undermining political progress. On Monday, May 5, 2014, the Rafik Hariri Center for the […]

Libya’s Faustian bargains: Breaking the appeasement cycle

By Karim Mezran, Jason Pack, and Mohamed Eljarh

A new Atlantic Council report examines the threats to Libya’s stability, provides a detailed mapping of the militia landscape, and details policy options for the Libyan government and its international partners. In Libya’s Faustian Bargains: Breaking the Appeasement Cycle, the authors attribute the cycle of violence, intractable political stalemate, and weakened economy to the Libyan […]

The Political Process in Libya

By Karim Mezran

Libya’s road to democracy is shaky at best. Security is deteriorating, with targeted killings, criminal attacks, and bombings on the rise and clashes between rival armed groups—some apparently with government legitimacy and others not—growing more frequent. While these negative trends put tremendous pressure on the transition, Libya’s political process, albeit fickle, manages to keep moving. […]

Libya’s Faltering Political Process

By Duncan Pickard and Karim Mezran

The transition to democracy in Libya always has been a tenuous affair, but with the start of constitution drafting, the process as imagined is falling apart. The lack of national political leadership, security infrastructure, and public credibility in the state form a vicious circle. Nonetheless, opportunities to move the transition forward exists if the political […]

Is Local Government in Libya the Solution?

By Mahmoud Bader

As Libya faces numerous challenges with the existence of federalists and militia groups, the question of decentralization grows in urgency. Libyans need to bolster local government in an effort to leave their past behind and meet their everyday needs, but lacks the adequate legal and constitutional framework to ensure better governance.

A Dangerous Lapse: US, EU Lose Focus on Arab Democracy

By New Atlanticist

The crisis over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dominated this week’s EU-US Summit in Brussels, followed by the topics that had been intended as top priorities for the meeting: negotiations for a broad transatlantic trade partnership and Europe’s anger at how pervasively it has been spied upon by the US National Security Agency. Missing from the […]

MENASource Discussions: Libya Through the Eyes of its Activists

By MENASource

As concerns grow about the marginalization of women in the Arab transitions, the Atlantic Council convened a discussion last week featuring four prominent Libyan women activists to highlight the challenges and opportunities facing Libya as it struggles to forge a path forward.

Social Bonds Hold Libya Together, But Stronger Political Bonds Needed to Prosper

By Fadel Lamen

Recent foreign reporting of Libya would suggest that we are on the brink of a civil war. The departure of Prime Minister Zeidan, the inability of the central government to prevent the escape of a mystery oil tanker laden with Libyan oil, the fighting in Sirte: taken together, these portend, in the eyes of outside […]

Navy SEAL Action Behind Words in Support of Libyan Institutions

By Karim Mezran

In the early hours of Monday, March 17 in the Mediterranean, US Navy SEALS seized the tanker that just a few days earlier infamously loaded illicitly-obtained oil from an eastern oil field and escaped from Libyan authorities. Many have decried the move, authorized by President Barack Obama, as a breach of Libyan sovereignty and a […]