Some Libyans enjoyed the developments at the US Capitol building last week when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed Congress, and compared the “power struggle” and signs of division in their country to developments in the United States, saying that Americans “learned” from the Libyan experience.
According to a report by Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, many Libyans blame Trump for the war that took place in and around Tripoli in 2019, which ended after only 14 months with Turkey’s intervention to support the Government of National Accord.
Correcting the Path
Libyans hope that President-elect Joe Biden will “correct the course” adopted by Trump, and in this regard, the former UN advisor, Ibrahim Musa Saeed Jarada, believes that Trump is partly responsible for the Tripoli war that began on April 4, 2019.
He referred to the phone call made by Field Marshal Haftar on April 19, 2019 with the then US National Security Adviser John Bolton, who told the commander of the National Army, according to Western diplomats, that if he was seeking to attack Tripoli, he should do so quickly.
According to Asharq Al-Awsat, many interpreted his remark as an American green light to continue the attack and that Washington would not intervene to prevent it. Jarada described the Tripoli attack as “the fiercest and most dangerous war against a Libyan city in the modern history of Libya.”
Confronting Erdogan’s Ambitions
Today, many Libyans hope that Biden will intervene quickly and positively in the affairs of the Middle East in order to help solve many of the problems plaguing the region, and they hope that he will move away from Trump’s “bizarre” policy as well as the policies of his predecessor, Barack Obama.
Moreover, many Libyans hope Biden will remain true to his vow during his election campaign to counter Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions in Libya.
However, the Cato Institute in Washington urged Biden not to engage militarily in other countries, and stated that if Biden wanted to produce a constructive record on foreign policy, he would have to shun much of the foreign policy legacy of the Obama administration.
