International actors, paralyzed by disunity, have made halfhearted calls for a cease-fire and a return to the political process. But Haftar’s offensive has fatally damaged that process. Without a credible new framework for negotiations and a more robust international approach to resolving the conflict, a cease-fire will simply give Haftar and his opponents the opportunity to rearm and regroup. Western powers—especially the United States—should use diplomatic and economic tools to prevent regional powers from fueling the conflict and hasten the emergence of a harmful stalemate between the rival factions in Libya. Doing so will compel Libyans to return to a political process under new terms.
HAFTAR’S GAMBLE
Earlier this year, Haftar seemed close to reaching a deal with Fayez al-Serraj, the prime minister of the GNA. In February, the two met in Abu Dhabi and reached a tentative agreement that would have made Haftar the key power broker in a new transitional government. Yet the talks stalled—chiefly because Haftar, as Western and UN diplomats who mediated between the parties told us at the time, was clearly unwilling to accept that he would need to share power.
Haftar’s offensive blind-sided his negotiating partners in western Libya, but they soon rallied to defend the capital. Militia factions that had bitterly tussled with one another for years finally united in opposition to him. Haftar now faces resistance of a magnitude he probably never expected, and with the bulk of his forces deployed to Tripoli, his control over other parts of the country has been dangerously weakened. Already, the Islamic State (ISIS) has exploited this weakness by carrying out attacks in southern Libya.
A cease-fire at this stage is unthinkable. Even if Serraj agreed to a truce, he does not exert enough authority over GNA-aligned militias, especially those from the coastal city of Misrata, to enforce it. The Misratans had long been fighting Haftar and his proxies, and over the past two years their elites had become amenable to a compromise. But since the offensive, they no longer feel that they can trust Haftar, let alone strike a deal without losing their base of support. GNA-aligned forces, moreover, are confident that they can defeat Haftar militarily, at least in western Libya.
Haftar, for his part, has little chance of taking Tripoli anytime soon. Yet he cannot retreat without jeopardizing his political position in eastern Libya. Nor does he face any external pressure to withdraw: his foreign backers, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt, support the offensive, and Western governments have responded to it with a mix of toothless condemnation and tacit support. The French, in particular, have encouraged Haftar’s ambitions: they assisted him in his conquest of eastern and southern Libya, inadvertently emboldening him to attack Tripoli, and have protected him politically since the offensive started.
Now the Europeans are insisting that Haftar and the GNA stop fighting and return to the negotiating table, using the Abu Dhabi agreement as a starting point—but this position is divorced from the realities on the ground. In fact, the weak European response to the offensive is a key reason why neither a cease-fire nor a return to the political process is currently realistic: Libya’s warring parties clearly cannot rely on Europeans to enforce the implementation of an agreement.
This leaves the United States. Both the State Department and the Department of Defense initially attempted to convince Haftar to withdraw his forces. But on April 15, U.S. President Donald Trump publicly endorsed Haftar in a phone call, effectively neutralizing the efforts of U.S. diplomats to bring the fighting to a close.