European
values are fairly clear: they want oil to travel northward, not
people. Haftar, at the cost of the Libyans themselves, will make that
happen.
by
Vijay Prashad
You can
well imagine the tension when Libya’s beleaguered Prime Minister
Fayez al-Serraj met with the UN envoy Ghassan Salamé in his office
in Tripoli on Monday morning. Not far away, in the south of Libya’s
capital, the troops of the Libyan National Army led by General
Khalifa Haftar had made rapid advances. They had taken the shell of
Tripoli International Airport and had made a dash toward the road
that links Libya to Tunisia. Haftar’s troops, well-armed and
well-disciplined, had moved northward toward the Ain-Zara
neighborhood. On Monday, Haftar’s air force bombed the only working
airport in Tripoli—at Mitiga. The United Nations wanted to let
al-Serraj know that it would not abandon him.
Part
3 - Oil and the West
Europe
wants Libyan oil. Its sources of energy have been picked off one by
one by the West’s conflicts. It first lost access to Iranian energy
because of the United States and Israeli driven sanctions regime
(2006 to the present). NATO’s war on Libya set back the possibility
for Libyan oil—the easiest to refine kind—to travel across the
Mediterranean Sea (2011). It then lost access to the Russian energy,
including the crucial Russian–German Nord Stream gas pipeline,
after the conflict in Ukraine (2014). There’s no doubt that Europe
is eager for Libyan oil. It has said so quite directly.
Haftar’s
troops seized the southern oil fields in Libya (including the
largest, Sharara, directly south of Tripoli) and are in control of
most of the oil installations on the coastline. He is
already—substantially—in charge of the oil. If Haftar is able to
take the oil terminals in Zawiya, then he controls all the oil and
its exits.
There is
a good reason why the United States withdrew its forces from Libya as
Haftar approached Tripoli. It does not want to be forced to defend
the UN government against a man who will soon be anointed leader of
the country. France has very close links with Haftar. Its defense
minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has been a regular guest in Libya,
meeting both al-Serraj and Haftar. Sources near Haftar say that Le
Drian and the general are very comfortable with each other.
If
Haftar takes Libya, the Saudis and the Emiratis would have their
tentacles across most of North Africa (Egypt and Libya). Last year,
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman toured the rest of North
Africa, including Algeria. He received the cold shoulder from both
the people and the leaders. Things will change for him if his close
proxies are in charge of half of the north.
The West
and the Gulf Arabs have condemned Libya to the strongman.
Europe
has another worry: the refugees. There is a sense that Haftar will
bring stability to the country and stop the movement of people
northward. European values are fairly clear: they want oil to
travel northward, not people. Haftar, at the cost of the Libyans
themselves, will make that happen.
***
Source:
Read
also:
Comments
Post a Comment