Credit should be given to President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi for his realistic capability to handle foreign crises, which takes into account Egypt’s interests in the light of complex regional maps and mysterious international interactions.
From this perspective, his movements regarding the Libyan crisis should be understood. He did not step into a quagmire and did not move away from details. In a decisive moment, he turned Turkish military recklessness into an Egyptian gain when he launched the Cairo Declaration on Saturday to resolve the crisis, and made all the powers, both internal and external, take them as part of their responsibilities.
The windmill of opinions then started turning as regards the role of Egypt in the Libyan crisis. Some spoke about disappearance and vanishing and others pointed to caution and inaction. Neither understood the truth repeated by the formal discourse that Libya is a red line and lies within Egyptian national security.
They didn’t interpret the strategic connotations the words bore. Some of them got carried away along with the Turkish and Muslim Brotherhood and imagined that silence is an acceptance of the status quo. They didn’t realise that, at a certain time and place, silence speaks louder than words, especially as everybody knows that noise doesn’t build states and depending on mercenaries and militias doesn’t guarantee a regional role for their players.
The Cairo Declaration, which relied on the outcomes of previous initiatives, the most prominent being the Berlin Conference held in January, turned the tables on Turkey, placed it in a narrow corner and obliged it either to continue its aggressive behaviour or to listen to the voice of Egyptian reason.
Moreover, it made the Libyan forces look deeply into the essence of the crisis lying in the senile authority in Tripoli and the sides in which it invests, whereas the declaration presented an integrated vision for the solution, and mandated that no foreign parties should intervene in Libya.
Regional and international reactions confirmed that there is a real opportunity to build upon this declaration and implement it on the ground.
The initiative was transformed into a political rescue that will save the face of many forces which were about to reach a dead-end due to the Turkish military invasion, the excessive transport of mercenaries and terrorists, concluding illegal agreements with the Government of National Accord in Tripoli and attempting to control a part of the Libyan economy.
These steps represented direct threats to the security of some Western powers that had traditional interests which might find itself in an undesired confrontation with Russia, with the USA releasing information that it has a military force on Libyan land. This, in its turn, compels some countries to choose between making concessions or engaging in open confrontations, for the degree of heat that Libya has reached could not be endured by big powers at present.
The Cairo Declaration presented a practical model for resolution before the powers desiring peace and those that have been used to thuggery and beating the drums of war. It included a comprehensive vision and closed all doors in front of those drawling about the difficulty of searching for peace as long as Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar was the commander of the Libyan National Army.
The ceasefire was a main condition in the Egyptian initiative and it came following the persuasion of the LNA to relocate away from the capital, thus removing one of the most important false justifications for the GNA to enlist Turkey’s military assistance.
The Cairo Declaration’s content and the consultations that preceded and followed it with leaders of many countries exposed differences in the priorities, intentions, movements and roles of Egypt and Turkey.
The former is handling the Libyan crisis with obvious discretion, seeking calmness, security and stability, while the latter is embracing reckless visions that don’t suit the capacities of the ruling regime in Ankara, even exceeding its strategic capabilities.
The Turkish interference broke the well-established geopolitical barriers which have always been a criterion of the capability of countries to carry out their regional missions. It used demagogic methods aimed at addressing rogue Islamist factions in the Arab world, to whom their Istanbul-based leaders are serving neo-Ottoman illusions. It is likely that this will lead to the end of the dream of Erdogan’s and all Muslim Brotherhood member in the region.
Many have said that Libya would be turned into a new Syrian model and the game of changing roles between Ankara and Moscow would be repeated. They apparently relied on evidence that makes the link between the two example semi-realistic. However, this comparison ignores a number of other elements that make it inapt; from a border perspective, Syria is a stone’s throw from Turkey, while Libya is hundreds of kilometres away.
Ambitions in the former are mainly for security and geographical reasons, while in the latter they are essentially economic. In Syria, the war wasn’t a proxy war; all the parties know quite well who fights who and who is in alliance with whom. In Libya, Turkey is still the party most involved in the scene and the interventions of other powers differ in the objectives and final outcomes.
The Egyptian initiative lifted the lid off several negative conceptions and aimed at preserving the Libyan people’s interests and the unity and stability of their land, as well as withdrawing foreign interventions, first and foremost that of Turkey.
Turkey must act positively, prove that it isn’t an occupation force, as it claims not to be, and must not use its tricks to hamper the initiative so as to ensure that it will keep playing its role, which is boosted by chaos and shrunken by calmness. It must also stop inciting its political and military arms in Tripoli to obstruct an initiative that has taken into account all intersections and alignments in order to create an exit from the current impasse and build a viable state.
The ball is in Ankara's court. The political and military mosaic in Tripoli co-existed before the previous period, relying on the confrontation of one foe, the LNA. It is expected that many contradictions among them, which have now receded, and the military battles that once raged over the control of the government’s and the revolution’s key posts, will now come to the fore. With every successful step the Egyptian initiative attains, the battalions’ commanders lose grounds they thought they gained with the Turkish invasion.
The Tripoli group is facing a formidable challenge because the fragile cooperation among its members is becoming closer to being poisoned. For the political settlement is the biggest foe which it can confront; it removes its raison d’être on the ground.
Thus, it will seek to resist the resolution and circumvent movements aiming at implementing the Cairo Declaration. Its implementation means that the differences within the GNA will rise to the surface, which were covered up by the operation of liberating Tripoli. Consequently, it is natural that voices of refusal will be raised until these differences are under control. It is necessary that the pressure from the international community on this government be serious this time.
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