Stability rather than integration

I was a fly on the wall yesterday and overheard a discussion of Libya. Here are some of my takeaways:

1. The UN-sponsored political process has gotten about as far as it can get under current circumstances. The Presidential Council is in Tripoli and the country’s two expired legislatures are more or less defunct.
2. General Haftar, who leads the so-called Libyan National Army headquartered in Benghazi, will not be able to displace the Presidential Council, but he also isn’t prepared to accept the subordinate role (as foreseen for the military chief in Article 8 of the UN-sponsored Libyan Political Agreement).
3. So the most likely outcome is divided governance for now, superimposed on an elaborate array of municipal and tribal arrangements that are far more important to most Libyans than those claiming national authority.
4. Legitimacy in Libya does not stem from elections but rather from effective and inclusive governance. The international community has to do what it can to help Presidential Council Chair Sarraj deliver the goods.
5. Over the long-term, subnational dialogue and structures will also be vital to stability in Libya, which should be the international community’s relatively modest goal.
6. The next step at the national level should be a Libyan/Libyan dialogue on security issues, mainly between the Misratan militia and Haftar. This should aim to determine practical arrangements for security, in particular in Sirte once the Islamic State is defeated there as well as for the oil fields and pipelines.
7. Power-sharing is not as good an idea as defining the territory on which different militias will hold sway.
8. The Egyptians and United Arab Emirates have provided support to Haftar, but they can’t “deliver” him, partly because if they try he will turn to Moscow. The Russians would like an opportunity to gain a toehold in North Africa.
9. Haftar could be more of a problem if his sponsors abandon him than if they maintain their support and try to influence him.
10. The Turkish role in Libya is in doubt in the wake of the coup attempt. Erdogan, who had already begun to reconfigure Ankara’s relations with Russia and Israel, may also revise his position vis-a-vis Syria and Libya.
11. So long as the international community gives priority to fighting ISIS, it will be difficult to gain attention to the more fundamental and long-term problem of how Libya is to be governed.
12. Prospects for a major international intervention in Libya have dimmed, though the threat of mass migration persists: as many as 800,000 people in Libya are thought to be intending to cross the Mediterranean.
13. Europe is increasingly turning its attention to preventing sub-Saharan migrants from reaching Libya by strengthening economies and governance in Mali, Niger and elsewhere.
14. US and European special forces engagement on the ground in Libya, which aims principally at fighting ISIS, could also be useful in informing international efforts at promoting Libyan/Libyan dialogue and stabilizing the situation.
15. The key to success is gaining an improved understanding of what motivates different actors: how can they be incented or disincented?
16. While Libya’s revolutionary aspirations have largely been dashed and its polity badly divided, the society still has indigenous tribal and civil society capacities that could prove vital in stabilizing its three main regions (east, west and south) now and eventually re-knitting them into a single state.

International goals for Libya should be modest. Resources are limited. The “international community,” often divided, has lost a lot of clout and credibility in Libya, even if the UN plan has gone farther than some might have expected. Stability rather than democracy should be the immediate objection. Deconfliction rather than integration.