In October of 2011, NATO intervention in the Libyan Civil War helped push the rebels over the edge, providing for the end of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya with the brutal death of Muammar Gaddafi. With Gaddafi’s death and the end of the Libyan pan-Arab dictatorship he had fostered, Libya elected a new legislature, the General National Congress, and Islamists did quite well in those initial elections. Instability loomed, however, and in 2014 a new legislature was convened, the House of Representatives, which was more secular and liberal. It was backed by General Khalifa Haftar. The GNC did not recognize this new legislature and a new civil war broke out. In the anarchy, terrorist groups surged and the Islamic State was even able to gain a territorial foothold in the country. The GNC eventually reorganiuzed as the Government of National Accord, receiving the recognition of the United Nations as Libya’s sole legitimate government, but Haftar and his House of Representatives held out in the east, moving slowly westwards. In early 2019, Haftar launched a massive campaign against the GNA, making significant gains. While the UN recognizes the Tripoli government, US President Donald Trump said in mid-April that he “recognized Field Marshal Haftar’s significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya’s oil resources.”
It is clear that the United States, much like with the Iraq War, did not take the proper steps to ensure the government we had overthrown was replaced with a good government. In Iraq, we waited for 10 years before pulling out, allowing Iran and radical Islamist groups to fill the void as the democratic government we had in place foundered. In Libya, we did not even stay, American and NATO forces helped facilitate Gaddafi’s death and that was the end of substantial US involvement, even after the rise of ISIS in Libya or the 2012 attack on our embassy.