The Islamic State is the easy problem

While the Obama Administration is leaking profusely plans for military intervention in Libya against the Islamic State, I spent a good part of yesterday with people worrying about what to do there beyond killing extremists. It is all too obvious that an air war without a political solution that mobilizes Libyans against the extremists could leave the country even more destabilized than it already is.

It is not so clear what to do about that. A political solution is on the table, but its implementation is stalled, perhaps permanently. Even if the diplomats succeed in their current efforts to get the Government of National Accord (GNA) sworn in, its move to Tripoli poses big security problems, as the capital is in the hands of 15 or more militias loyal to one of the country’s two separate legislative bodies.

Planning for a peacekeeping/stabilization mission is ongoing with the Europeans, including the British, French and Italians. The Americans won’t contribute ground troops but rather “enablers” like ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance to the civilians among us) as well as whatever is needed (drones, aircraft, special forces) to attack ISIS.

There is a wide range of views on what kind of stabilization mission is desirable or possible. Some think a light footprint limited to Tripoli, or even limited to protecting the GNA and foreign embassies, will suffice and arouse little Libyan xenophobia, provided the strategic communications are adequate. Others note that experience elsewhere would require upwards of 70,000 international peacekeepers in a country the size of Libya requiring peace enforcement. A small force unable or unwilling to protect the Libyan population might arouse more resentment and resistance, not less. At the very least, major routes, cantonments of weapons, borders and oil facilities will need protection, either by internationals or Libyans.

Any stabilization force will require a GNA request, Arab League endorsement and a United Nations Security Council mandate. It will need to be able to supply and defend itself, including from Islamic State and other extremist and criminal attacks. Those are tall orders.

But Libya also has some characteristics that make peacekeeping relatively easy: it is close to Europe, has good ports and a long coastline, it is mostly flat and desert, with few places for spoilers to hide, other than urban areas. The population is mostly Arab (there are Berbers as well–remember the Barbary pirates) and overwhelmingly Sunni. The country’s immediate neighbors–Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria–are all anxious to end the instability and block the Islamic State from establishing a safe haven in Libya, though they don’t necessarily agree on how to do that.

Beyond getting the GNA up and running, what to do about the militias in Libya is the most difficult governance problem. The Finance Ministry, which still functions, has been paying many of them. Others, especially in the south and west, have already gone into private sector, running smuggling and other illicit businesses. Past efforts to build a united Libyan security force by training people outside the country failed miserably. Next time around it will have to be done in Libya. Many of the militiamen will need to be disarmed and demobilized, but there is little in the way of an economy to integrate them into. It is vital to remember that the militias are linked to local patronage networks, which need to be mobilized in favor of stabilization, not against it.

While the US and others have the tools needed to kill extremists, it is not at all clear that we have what is needed to help the Libyans sort out their differences and begin to govern in ways that will deny safe haven to the Islamic State, which already controls the central coastal town of Sirte. We suffer from PDD: paradigm deficit disorder. A hundred T.E. Lawrences prepared to deploy with the militias and help sort out their differences might suffice. But where would we get the 100 Arabic speakers with deep knowledge of the Libyan human terrain? We have all but forgotten whatever we learned about such things in Iraq and Afghanistan, erased because the administration was determined not to get involved again in statebuilding in the Middle East.

The Islamic State is the easy part of the problem. The hard part is figuring out how Libya will be stabilized and governed once it is gone.