Research & Publications: Libya

A relatively successful transition from the Gaddafi regime to a united, stable, more open and democratic Libya would be seen in the region, and more widely, as a credit to the NATO-led intervention.

This Policy Brief examines the real and imagined influence of al-Qa‘ida in North Africa and the Sahel. Despite a perception of the transnationalization of terrorist movements in North Africa under al-Qa‘ida’s banner, robust evidence of an effective al-Qa‘ida’s expansion in the Maghreb and the Sahara/Sahel region remains elusive at best. Rather, doubts about al-Qa‘ida’s actual threat and the efficacy of international response in the context of pervasive state failure in the Sahel raise questions regarding the policy objectives of US-led counter-terrorism in the region.

While relatively well off in economic terms compared to its Arab neighbors, Libya still experienced a revolution which eventually overthrew Mu'ammar Qadhafi. St John identifies the lack of civic organizations, political parties and political freedom as the driving forces which fueled the outbreak of armed rebellion against Qadhafi.

While political debate still roils over the legality of the American role in Libya, other questions have grown more pressing.

This essay discusses the growing number and diverse forms of regional and international cooperation on the environment that have taken place in the Maghreb in recent decades.

American policy toward conflict in Libya is bearing disappointing fruit.

It was absolutely predictable that Republicans would attack President Obama whatever he did in Libya, though Newt Gingrich, in his overeagerness, overreached by criticizing him for too explicitly opposite reasons.

Rahm Emanuel famously quipped that a crisis should never go to waste. In his absence, the Administration seems determined not to take sufficient advantage of the ongoing and huge crisis in the Arab world.