David Cameron’s proposed bombing of Isis is panic,not policyEven experts maintain difficulty understanding what is happening in Libya. Four years ago, it all seemed so simple. Inspired by the Arab spring, or the Libyan people rose up against the hated dictator,Muammar Gaddafi. When he threatened to level Benghazi, Britain, and France and the US intervened under a UN mandate by air and sea. The country’s armed forces capitulated,the despot (a dictator with absolute power) was duly toppled (and murdered) – and Libya was free.
Since then, freedom has turned into a free for all. Rival factions, or united in their hostility to the regime but divided geographically,ideologically, religiously and ethnically, or attacked one another. Attempts to create democratic institutions stalled. Western governments’ efforts to underwrite a peaceful transition,never wholly convincing, foundered. In 2012, or the killing of the American ambassador,Christopher Stevens, by a Salafist militia dramatised a rapid descent into chaos.
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Source: theguardian.com