In 2011, the world watched as the former longtime leader of Libya,
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, was captured and executed by rebel forces.
But hopes it would lead to a new era of stability soon disappeared.
As it collapsed further into civil war, Libya's population suffered and
it became a significant source of instability in North Africa.
All this has led to claims that eliminating Gaddafi was in fact a disaster.
So, how and why exactly was the Libyan leader deposed?
And should he have been allowed to stay in power?
Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay and
here I take an informed look at international relations, conflict, security, and statehood.
One of the most controversial issues in international relations is whether
foreign leaders should ever be overthrown.
On the one hand, there's a clear International legal injunction against doing it.
States as sovereign entities and other countries must respect that,
even if it means accepting undesirable, unaccountable, and often dangerous leaders.
However, balanced against this,
there's the argument that the international community is responsible for upholding
human rights and protecting populations against the worst abuses of dictators.
Likewise, it should be able to respond to leaders
who represent a fundamental threat to international peace and security.
But, as we've seen over the past several decades,
efforts to remove such leaders can have unforeseen and dramatic consequences.
While these leaders may be appalling, the political vacuum that can sometimes follow their
overthrow can be disastrous for countries and lead to broader regional and international insecurity.
One of the most interesting cases in recent years was the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.
His ousting in 2011 saw the country plunged into a deep civil war.
As a result, there have now been questions about whether
it may have been better to have kept him in place.
The State of Libya lies in North Africa.
At 1.75 million square kilometres, or 680
000 square miles, it's the 16th largest country in the world and the fourth largest in Africa.
To its east lie Egypt and Sudan.
To its South are Chad and Niger.
And to its west are Algeria and Tunisia.
The Mediterranean Sea lies along its north coast.
Its population is currently in the region of around 6.7 million,
much of which is located along that Mediterranean coast,
predominantly in two main cities: the capital Tripoli in the west, and Benghazi to the east.
The country is resource-rich, ranking in the top 10 worldwide for oil and natural gas deposits.
As a result, at one stage, it was one of the wealthiest states in North Africa,
with a per capita GDP of almost 16 000 US dollars in 2012.
However, that figure has now been halved and Libya has fallen below the regional average.
Libya has a vibrant history stretching back thousands of years.
Having been conquered by the Phoenicians, Carthage, and the Greeks, the north coast
came under Roman control in 74 BC, becoming the provinces of Cyrenaica and Africa.
However, as the Roman Empire split in the 4th Century,
it was divided between the Western and Eastern parts.
This lasted until the 7th century when,
following the emergence of Islam, it was conquered by Arab forces.
From there, it remained under Muslim rule,
becoming a part of the Ottoman Empire in the early 16th century.
In 1911, Italy seized control. This lasted until 1943,
After heavy fighting during the Second World War, it was occupied by the Allies.
Although France and Italy relinquished their claims to Libya in 1947, Britain retained control.
However, following UN calls for it to be granted self-determination,
it formally gained independence on 24 December 1951, becoming the United Kingdom of Libya.
At first, the new country's future looked far from promising.
Poor and underdeveloped, it was also fragmented across its federal political system.
As a result, it was highly dependent on foreign aid, including support from Britain and the United
States; both of which were granted military bases in the country in return for their assistance.
However, all this would change in the 1950s with the discovery of oil.
This had a dramatic economic and political impact on the country
as foreign firms moved in to begin drilling.
This led to growing disaffection amongst the youth, with many supporting the Arab
nationalism of Gamal Abdul Nasser, the president of neighbouring Egypt.
All this came to a head on 1 September 1969, when a group of young army officers
led by Muammar Al Gaddafi staged a coup and overthrew the king, who at the time was abroad.
From the start, Gaddafi, a devout Muslim an Arab nationalist, began transforming the country.
Assuming the post of commander of the Armed Forces and chairman
of the Revolutionary Command Council, the new governing regime, he espoused a
highly devolved form of populist socialism combined with a strict adherence to Islam.
At the same time as he remade the country internally,
he also radically transformed its foreign policy.
For a start, he moved against Western influences in Libya.
As well as closing the US and British bases in the country, he also expelled the country's
Jewish and Italian communities, and, in 1973, he nationalised the oil industry.
On top of this, he took an uncompromising position towards Israel.
For example, he loudly denounced the US brokered 1978 peace agreement with Egypt
and publicly welcomed the assassination of the Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat three years later.
All this would steadily escalate over the the course of the 1980s.
As well as openly supporting various Arab militant groups, he began supporting other
terrorist organisations worldwide, including the Red Army, the IRA and various Islamist groups.
All this came to a head in 1986 when, following several attacks by Libyan agents
on Western targets, the United States launched a bombing attack on Gaddafi's compound in Tripoli.
In revenge, Gaddafi continued his efforts,
bombing a Pan Am flight over the Scottish Village of Lockerbie that killed 270 people.
However, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union changed the
fortunes of the Libyan leader, who had previously relied on Soviet patronage.
At the same time, his regime came under UN sanctions after
US and British prosecutors indicted two Libyan agents for the Lockerbie bombing.
Although Gaddafi continued to be a troublemaker during the 1990s,
he wasn't as effective or influential as he had once been and by the end of the decade,
with sanctions now biting, the country began a significant foreign policy about turn.
After agreeing to hand over the Lockerbie bombing suspects, and paying compensation
for the death of a British policewoman killed outside the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984,
Gaddafi started to be welcomed back into the international fold.
However, it was the fall of Saddam Hussein following the
US invasion of Iraq that changed everything.
Believing he could be next, Gaddafi now pledged to
give up his efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.
This all brought significant results as both the
US and the European Union began to rebuild relations with Libya.
At the same time, it began to be welcomed back into the wider International community,
winning a seat on the UN Security Council and chairing the African Union.
But despite this progress,
everything changed in December 2010 with the outbreak of the Arab Spring.
As widespread protests spread across the region, bringing down the leadership in
neighbouring Egypt and sparking an uprising in Syria, demonstrations erupted in Libya.
But while a brutal crackdown by security forces only served to fuel public anger
and sparked several high-profile defections, Gaddafi vowed to stay on.
But the opposition to his regime was now snowballing.
Internally, various groups had come together to form the Transitional National Council.
And as violence escalated, the United Nations imposed sanctions on the regime.
But while the opposition managed to secure the country's east and seemed
poised to take the capital, Gaddafi's forces managed to regain momentum.
And it was at this stage that Britain and France now stepped in to call for
direct intervention, proposing a no-fly zone over the country.
Although other Western states, including Germany and the United
States, initially urged caution, the Arab League supported the measure.
As a result, the UN Security Council voted in favour of military measures to halt the fighting.
By the end of March 2011,
NATO had begun missile and airstrikes against Libyan forces loyal to Gaddafi.
At the same time, while diplomatic efforts continued to find a peaceful resolution to
the crisis, Britain, France, and Italy all sent military advisers to help the rebels.
All this delivered results when, in August,
the opposition forces finally broke through and took Tripoli.
With the Transitional National Council now internationally recognised as
the country's lawful government, Gaddafi, who had fled the capital,
was finally captured and killed by rebel forces on 20 October.
Although many hoped that the country could now make a fresh start,
the disparate groups that had overthrown Gaddafi soon turned on each other.
In 2014, this erupted into another full-scale conflict,
the so-called Second Libyan Civil War, as the Government of National Accord in
the west took on the forces of the Libyan National Army in the east.
On top of this, the involvement of various outside actors further complicated matters.
While the United Nations and most Western states recognised the GNA as the country's
lawful government, propped up with strong Turkish support, many countries lined up
behind the LNA, including Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Then, to make it even more complicated, as well as all the different indigenous groups fighting
for control, the country became a magnet for islamist organisations, including ISIS.
This was graphically highlighted in September 2012
when militants murdered the US ambassador to the country.
In October 2020, nine years of war formally came to an end with a permanent ceasefire.
But while this was meant to have paved the way for presidential elections, these have yet to happen.
While the fighting has stopped, the situation remains precarious.
Of course, all this has taken a massive toll on Libya.
Once regarded as one of the wealthiest countries in Africa, with considerable social welfare
programs, the country has been decimated; politically, socially, and economically.
As well as the tens of thousands killed, millions have been displaced.
But what stands out for many observers in this story is how the western states shifted
so quickly from accepting, if not supporting, Gaddafi to then fully endorsing regime change.
While this has long been a source of wider International criticism,
the debate has also played out in Western policy circles.
For instance, in 2016, Barack Obama stated that the failure to plan for the
overthrow Gaddafi was the most significant foreign policy failure of his presidency.
However, despite this, he nevertheless stood behind the decision to oust the Libyan leader.
But others have been far more scathing, arguing that the overthrow of Gaddafi has
been nothing short of a disaster for the country and for international security.
This point has been particularly loudly made recently by the former head of the
French intelligence service in the country.
Like the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq,
the ousting of Gaddafi raises crucial questions about the conduct of international relations.
Undoubtedly, he was a despotic and quixotic leader and Libya
had been a persistent state sponsor of terrorism.
But he had also been trying to engage in rapprochement and has
been brought back into international society.
Ultimately, Libya, like Iraq, should prompt observers on both sides of the debates - pro-
and anti-interventionists - to think long and hard about how to respond to unstable
autocrats in the international system and consider the broader effects of removing them.
I hope you found that useful.
If so, here are some more videos that you might find interesting.
Thanks so much for watching and see you in the next one