‘Arab Spring’ Revolt in Libya Leaves Country in Chaos

Fighters speed towards the frontllne fighting in the village of Mayah, some 30 kilometers west of Tripoli, Libya, on August 21, 2011. (AP)
Fighters speed towards the frontllne fighting in the village of Mayah, some 30 kilometers west of Tripoli, Libya, on August 21, 2011. (AP)
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‘Arab Spring’ Revolt in Libya Leaves Country in Chaos

Fighters speed towards the frontllne fighting in the village of Mayah, some 30 kilometers west of Tripoli, Libya, on August 21, 2011. (AP)
Fighters speed towards the frontllne fighting in the village of Mayah, some 30 kilometers west of Tripoli, Libya, on August 21, 2011. (AP)

Two days before the eruption of the popular protests in Libya in February 2011, late ruler Moammar al-Gaddafi was very confident that he and his regime would withstand the pressure.

Along with his officials and security and intelligences agencies, he believed that nothing would happen, that the protests would be short-lived and his regime would endure.

The scene was different on social media, such as Facebook, where – for the first time – the Libyans displayed a boldness and did not hide behind fake names to express their opposition to the regime.

The spark was lit on February 15, 2011 with the arrest of lawyer Fathi Terbil in the eastern city of Benghazi. Terbil represented relatives of more than 1,000 prisoners allegedly massacred by security forces in Tripoli's Abu Salim jail in 1996. He was eventually freed.

The timing was bad. Security forces believe that they could prevent people from marking the anniversary of clashes that had taken place on February 17, 2006. Fourteen people were killed in the fighting that erupted with security forces and protesters, who had attacked the Italian consulate in wake of the publishing of offensive cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

On the fateful night in February 2011, the families of the prisoners had gathered in front of the police headquarters in Benghazi before marching on towards the central part of the city.

What ensued was the moment of truth for the army and military. The regime realized that it had committed a major error when it deprived the military of training and had limited changes to its leadership. For years, Gaddafi, wary of military coups against his rule, had stripped the military of its weapons and only appointed officials he trusted to leadership positions.

Trust trumped competence and the result was an army, security and intelligence force that collapsed at the slighted popular pressure. State institutions then followed. Libya teetered on the brink and has been in such a state ever since.

The west, eager to overthrow the old regime, soon provided the people with weapons. The result was thousands of undisciplined gunmen, who forged alliances with militias, which now are the only organized army in the oil-rich country.

In February, Libya will mark ten years of the ouster of the Gaddafi regime. The people have nothing to celebrate as the country is still mired in chaos and the United Nations is still grasping at straws to reach a political breakthrough to end the suffering.

The Libyans traded the ouster of the regime for chaos in a country that is now a failed state.

They face the daunting task of fighting corruption and demanding militias to lay down their weapons and in turn release their grip on the country’s natural wealth.

Added to the equation is Turkey, which is backing the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA). The GNA, headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, has surrounded itself with militias and mercenaries that are backed by Ankara.

Complicating the scenario are regional and international interests in Libya and how they impact military, political and economic developments in the country.

Amid these struggles, the regular civilian pays the price. They embraced the revolution only to be met with revolutionaries who refuse to lay down their weapons and build a state.



What to Know about the Tensions between Iran and the US before Their Third Round of Talks

The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)
The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)
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What to Know about the Tensions between Iran and the US before Their Third Round of Talks

The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)
The flags of US and Iran are displayed in Muscat, Oman, 25 April 2025. Iran and US will hold third round of nuclear talks on 26 April 2025, in Muscat. (EPA)

Iran and the United States will hold talks Saturday in Oman, their third round of negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.

The talks follow a first round held in Muscat, Oman, where the two sides spoke face to face. They then met again in Rome last weekend before this scheduled meeting again in Muscat.

Trump has imposed new sanctions on Iran as part of his “maximum pressure” campaign targeting the country. He has repeatedly suggested military action against Iran remained a possibility, while emphasizing he still believed a new deal could be reached by writing a letter to Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to jumpstart these talks.

Khamenei has warned Iran would respond to any attack with an attack of its own.

Here’s what to know about the letter, Iran’s nuclear program and the tensions that have stalked relations between Tehran and Washington since the 1979 revolution.

Why did Trump write the letter? Trump dispatched the letter to Khamenei on March 5, then gave a television interview the next day in which he acknowledged sending it. He said: “I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing.’”

Since returning to the White House, the president has been pushing for talks while ratcheting up sanctions and suggesting a military strike by Israel or the US could target Iranian nuclear sites.

A previous letter from Trump during his first term drew an angry retort from the supreme leader.

But Trump’s letters to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his first term led to face-to-face meetings, though no deals to limit Pyongyang’s atomic bombs and a missile program capable of reaching the continental US.

How did the first round go? Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, hosted the first round of talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. The two men met face to face after indirect talks and immediately agreed to this second round in Rome.

Witkoff later made a television appearance in which he suggested 3.67% enrichment for Iran could be something the countries could agree on. But that’s exactly the terms set by the 2015 nuclear deal struck under US President Barack Obama, from which Trump unilaterally withdrew America.

Witkoff hours later issued a statement underlining something: “A deal with Iran will only be completed if it is a Trump deal.” Araghchi and Iranian officials have latched onto Witkoff’s comments in recent days as a sign that America was sending it mixed signals about the negotiations.

Yet the Rome talks ended up with the two sides agreeing to starting expert-level talks this Saturday. Analysts described that as a positive sign, though much likely remains to be agreed before reaching a tentative deal.

Why does Iran’s nuclear program worry the West? Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials increasingly threaten to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran now enriches uranium to near weapons-grade levels of 60%, the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so.

Under the original 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was allowed to enrich uranium up to 3.67% purity and to maintain a uranium stockpile of 300 kilograms (661 pounds). The last report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s program put its stockpile at 8,294.4 kilograms (18,286 pounds) as it enriches a fraction of it to 60% purity.

US intelligence agencies assess that Iran has yet to begin a weapons program, but has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”

Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, has warned in a televised interview that his country has the capability to build nuclear weapons, but it is not pursuing it and has no problem with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspections. However, he said if the US or Israel were to attack Iran over the issue, the country would have no choice but to move toward nuclear weapon development.

“If you make a mistake regarding Iran’s nuclear issue, you will force Iran to take that path, because it must defend itself,” he said.

Why are relations so bad between Iran and the US? Iran was once one of the US’s top allies in the Middle East under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who purchased American military weapons and allowed CIA technicians to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA had fomented a 1953 coup that cemented the shah’s rule.

But in January 1979, the shah, fatally ill with cancer, fled Iran as mass demonstrations swelled against his rule. The revolution followed, led by Khomeini, and created Iran’s theocratic government.

Later that year, university students overran the US Embassy in Tehran, seeking the shah’s extradition and sparking the 444-day hostage crisis that saw diplomatic relations between Iran and the US severed. The Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s saw the US back Saddam Hussein. The “Tanker War” during that conflict saw the US launch a one-day assault that crippled Iran at sea, while the US later shot down an Iranian commercial airliner that the American military said it mistook for a warplane.

Iran and the US have see-sawed between enmity and grudging diplomacy in the years since, with relations peaking when Tehran made the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. But Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, sparking tensions in the Middle East that persist today.