Quote (Black XistenZ @ Aug 15 2023 02:16am)
These sectarian and tribal conflicts already existed during Gaddafi's reign, he just kept a lid on them with an iron fist. This "peace" under Gaddafi was always a mirage and not tenable in the long run.
A prominent historical example are the Yugoslaw Wars: general Tito reigned the multiethnical powder keg of Yugoslavia for decades, he wasn't couped away by the West, he just died some day because he was old and sick. Things didn't go south right away, but as soon as the country faced the next serious crisis (the fall of the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the Soviet Union), shit hit the fan. The country broke apart along ethnic lines in a series of bloody, genocidal wars which caused devastations from which Yugoslavia's successor states still haven't fully recovered today, 30 years later.
What has happened in Libya since 2011 is very similar to Yugoslavia during the 90s.
The bolded is exactly right. It's not ideal but at least there was general peace and stability. People can work, travel, there was tourism to the country, and so on. There's a lot of places around the globe being held together by less than optimal forces. There's this fallacious argument that if we get rid of a dictator in a country, what will follow is some subsequent good and magically the place will become a democracy. It's a pipe dream.
Look at Iraq post Saddam, us starting the war and getting rid of the power structure is the direct causation of ISIS forming, which was formed by Baath party remnants. Iraq looks a lot better than Libya today because we actually micro-managed the country for a decade and pumped hundreds of billions into it to prop up a power structure. Syria would of probably been a similar story to Iraq or maybe Libya, depending on how much involvement we would had after.
Maybe Libya's peace was a mirage and not going to last but that in no way justifies us fast-tracking and destabilizing the country with it devolving into warlord politics.