Here’s Why Gas Prices Are Skyrocketing Right Now

This report was originally published by M.K. Matthews on The Organic Prepper

Global economy and geopolitics are underpinning the oil price surge and gas prices are going up.

Who recalls the oil embargo of 1973? That was when the Arab-dominated Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announced they were cutting oil exports to the United States and other countries that provided military aid to Israel during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973.

In six months’ time, gas prices had quadrupled. Prices remained higher even after the embargo ended in March 1974.

But that could never happen again…Or could it?

The current members of OPEC are made up of twelve countries:  Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

Let’s look at some of the OPEC members and their current interactions with their friends, frenemies, foes, other random players, and the resultant alliances.

For weeks, tensions have been rising between Iran and Israel, It began in February when, according to Israel, an armed Iranian drone originating from Syria penetrated the Israeli airspace. Israel downed the drone, then attacked the caravan which launched the drone from the T-4 airbase deep in Syrian territory. An Israeli F-16 jet was brought down by a Syrian missile while over Israeli territory. At this point, Israel launched an extensive retaliatory strike on Syrian air defenses and Iranian forces in Syria. This all occurred in one day. It was remarkable because no Israeli plane had been brought down since 1982.

Two months later. seven Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed in an airstrike on a Syrian air base, which Iran blamed as being done by Israel. Mutual threats of retaliation have since been issued by both Iran and Israel.  Ultimately the conflict between the two countries depends on the fate of the nuclear deal. On May 12th Trump is anticipated to issue his decision on the deal.

Meanwhile, Iran is dealing with numerous internal issues. To name a few: a struggling economy, the worst drought in 25 years, increasing civil discontent, public demonstrations, and labor strikes. Last week Iranian President Hassan Rohani banned money exchangers from selling U.S. dollars and Euros. Travelers to nearby countries are limited to purchasing just 500 Euros ($615), while those traveling to more distant countries are limited to purchasing 1,000 Euros. Iranians may not hold more than 10,000 USD or 10,000 Euros.

In Israel, longstanding anti-Netanyahu demonstrations against government corruption have gained in size and sentiment. Saturday’s march in Tel Aviv numbered upwards of 4,000 people. Other more recently organized demonstrations, arranged by the Hadash party and composed of Arab Israelis, protested U.S. strikes on Syrian outside the U.S. Consulate in Haifa this weekend.

Meanwhile in Venezuela. Bloomberg outlines the catastrophic economic crisis:

“Venezuela, which holds the world’s largest oil reserves, has seen a steady decline in production amid lack of money for maintenance and exploration. Venezuela imports about 2 million barrels of heavy naphtha per month, and all of it comes from U.S. Gulf refiners, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.  The U.S. is leaning toward imposing oil-sector sanctions on Venezuela before the country holds April 22 elections that opposition leaders have vowed to boycott, according to a senior State Department official.  The official, who asked not to be identified discussing private talks, stressed that no decision has been made and the U.S. is still weighing the impact such sanctions would have on ordinary Venezuelans as well as on U.S. refiners that import heavy Venezuelan crude.”  (source)

A fire on the Libyan oil pipeline has dramatically reduced their output. Libya suffered a major fire on its major export pipeline that was attributed to terrorist activities this past weekend reducing their oil production from 300,000 barrels per day by at least 80,000 barrels per day. It is unknown how long it will take to make the necessary repairs.

Here’s the conclusion reached by OPEC.

OPEC has been meeting this last week and Reuters reported that a Joint Technical Committee meeting held Thursday found that the glut of global oil supplies has been virtually eliminated, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

“Industry sources have linked this shift in Saudi Arabia’s stance to its desire to support the valuation of state oil company Aramco ahead of the kingdom’s planned sale of a minority stake in an initial public offering.

The supply cut has helped boost oil prices this year to $73 a barrel, the highest since November 2014. Oil began a slide from above $100 – a price that Saudi Arabia endorsed in 2012 – in mid-2014 when growing supply from rival sources such as U.S. shale began to swamp the market. But the kingdom wants the rally to go further. Two industry sources said a desired crude price of $80 or even $100 was circulated by senior Saudi officials in closed-door briefings in recent weeks.” (source)

Some OPEC nations and their allies have pushed for the extension of the output curbs beyond  2018 and up to the middle of  2019, Iraq’s Oil Minister Jabbar al-Luaibi said last month in Baghdad.  (source)

But things are going well for Russia, China, and Qatar.

Bilateral relations between Russia and Qatar have been blossoming lately. This is very likely related to the blockade imposed by Qatar’s Arab neighbors. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt, who collectively imposed a unilateral blockade on Qatar on June 5, cutting diplomatic ties and closing their land, air, and sea borders over Qatar’s alleged support for terrorism.

In response to the blockade, Qatar, the world’s top producer of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), diversified and expanded their opportunities and opened the door to tens of billions in income by selling LNG to China. They are planning on increasing production by 30% by 2024 to meet the demand of the Asian market. China has stepped up to do more business with tiny Qatar in other areas as well. (source)

Old alliances are dissolving and new ones are being created

Plans are being made. Are we just one more hurricane away from losing more of our domestic oil and gas production? Are global geopolitical tensions where they were in the 1970’s?

No, not yet, but there isn’t a lot of margin for error as the world plays a risky game.

Please feel free to share any information from this article in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to The Organic Prepper and the following bio.

Daisy Luther is the author of The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide To Whole Food on a Half Price Budget.  Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca</e

Libya: 7 Years since February 17

On February 17 it will be 7 years since the start of the events in Libya which led to the overthrow of its leader – Muammar Gaddafi. These years have been full of dramatic and often bloody events, which, according to a number of different indices (effective sovereignty, stability, commercial activity etc.), have left the country much worse off.

Since 2014 the country has been in chaotic situation- divided into two sectors, with opposing capitals in Tripoli and Tobruk, each of which have their own government, parliament, and security services. The balance of power between them is changing.

In the last year the area controlled by the National Army, led by Marshal Khalifa Haftar (i.e. the eastern, or Tobruk, sector) has expanded. That sector includes the ‘oil crescent’ (the oil wells and the main ports for oil exports). The Government of National Accord, headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, has an unsteady hold over the country.

For three years the United Nations and a number of neighboring Arab countries have tried, without success, to persuade the two opposing parties to comply with the peace agreement that they signed in Morocco (which called for the creation of unified national transitional state structures, elections to the new parliament etc.) The Shkirat Agreement expired at the end of 2017.

Many experts consider that the negotiators meeting to discuss issues arising from the treaty lack the authority to make any decisions, and the military groups who they represent are heterogenous, each split into a number of camps, divided along regional and tribal lines.

To save the negotiating process, the UN special representative for Libya, Hasan Salam has presented a three-stage plan for the next year. He proposed that the Shkirat Agreement be amended, the Tripoli-based government be restructured, a constitution be drawn up and elections be held in the new parliament.

The question is, how can fair, impartial and democratic elections be held, when there are two governments? And how important are elections to the average Libyan, living in a delicate security situation and suffering from disorder and social and economic problems?

The falling value of the Libyan dinar and annual inflation of 30% are causing a fall in his standard of living. Before the revolution a dinar could be exchanged for three dollars and at its highest level Libyans looked down on the ‘green dollar’ with contempt. Now one dollar can be exchanged in the market for 9 Libyan dinars.

This is genuinely resulting in an increase in prices, as the majority of goods, especially food, are imported. Libyans are faced with the curse of cash shortages, queues in banks, power cuts, deteriorating services etc.

All these problems are the result of the collapse of Libya’s economy and manufacturing sector. According to Mustafa Sanalla, the president of the National Oil Corporation, Libya has lost $180 billion since 2011 because of the actions of various militias in the regions where oil is extracted, refined and transported.

In 2017 Libya received $14 billion from oil sales, three times more than in the previous year. But in 2010, the year before the revolution, oil exports brought approximately $47 billion into the national budget. It is true that recently the amount of ‘black gold’ extracted has increased to 1 million barrels a day, but this is still below the pre-revolution level of 1.6 million barrels a day.

Out of the 150 countries listed in Forbes Magazine’s rating of the ‘Best Countries for Foreign Business’, Libya occupies the last but one position.

As a result of the above situation, people’s attitudes towards the ideals of the February revolution are changing. Today, in Libya’s political and media circles, a clear divide is being observed between so-called ‘Februarists’ and ‘Septemberists’.

The ‘Februarists’ are those who fully support the February 17 revolution, and are convinced that the ‘rebels against a despotic regime’ won a just victory.

Those who support the former Gaddafi regime are known as ‘Septemberists’, as it was the September Revolution that brought Gaddafi to power. The latter camp, shaking their heads in wonder, ask themselves whether it was worth shedding so much blood, losing lives and suffering a huge material loss, merely to end up in Libya’s current fragmented state.

Both of these schools of thought have their own liberal, Islamist, and secular factions. That is why many local political analysts are urging them to find common points of agreement, steer clear of extreme positions, and put the interests of their country above their own selfish political calculations and concerns.

For example, Fatima Hamroush a former minister in Libya’s first post-revolution government, called for the creation of an emergency cabinet made up of politicians with a wide range of affiliations, including former associates of Gaddafi (). That is despite the fact that Dr. Hamroush was at one time a fierce critic of the previous regime.

It appears possible that a political consensus, arrived at in accordance with the law, might be able to fill the current institutional vacuum. But Libyan society is still divided by the powerful shocks it suffered in a war involving NATO and other foreign powers, and during the period of sectarian conflict which followed.

Political circles are pulled apart by disagreement, and are kept hostage by mutual resentments, suspicions and hostilities that have built up over a number of years.

Yury Zinin, Leading Research Fellow at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.

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Lebanon: Hariri Kept in Power to Destroy His Policy

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was all smiles after his talks in Paris on December 8th. The same Hariri who had resigned on November 5th, saying his life was in danger , had been confirmed in post by Rex Tillerson, the US Secretary of State, and French President Emanual Macron, who had led the effort to persuade him to stay on. He was also told that a conference would be held next year in Belgium to find ways to help Lebanon deal with its refugee crisis, which is one of the few migrations to actually deserve that much-overused title.

Like all Lebanese politicians, Hariri depends for his political and physical life on an external partner, in his case Saudi Arabia. The Hariri government has committed itself to the important policy of “disassociation”, i.e., not taking sides in the Syrian conflict which has created so many refugees, and by extension all the other conflicts in the region. This is an important step forward in re-establishing Lebanon as a truly independent state, responsible for its own security, making its own decisions, putting Lebanon rather than any of its constituent communities first.

The international support Hariri received seemed at first to indicate that the rest of the world wants that outcome. The problem is that disassociation means something very different to the West than it does to Lebanon or the regional states. For them, it means removing Hezbollah from the conflicts in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, thus removing an inconvenience for themselves. This would also reduce Iran’s influence in these conflicts, and give Western countries a carrot they can offer to its rival Turkey – they will kick Iran out of places Turkey wants to dominate if Ankara comes closer to the Western position, instead of becoming increasingly independent in order to stake its claim to regional hegemony.

For many decades Lebanon kept out of all the many regional conflicts, and prospered. Since the Israelis invaded to remove Hezbollah, and the Syrians came as peacekeepers and overstayed their welcome, it has been a proxy battleground for all the conflicts countries are unwilling to enter into openly. Hariri’s father, also a Prime Minister, was assassinated as part of the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which has to be fought in Lebanon because both sides are strong enough to win an open war against the other but not if the West intervenes, which would happen if direct conflict broke out.

So while Hariri has every reason to make his version of disassociation work, his new protectors in the West have no real wish to see it. They have effectively given him two options: either remain the site of proxy wars so we don’t have to get involved in real ones, or replace one lot of foreign interference with another.

In the first option, Lebanon will be given time and space to sort out its problems provided it doesn’t really do that. In the second, it will be the West who decides who sponsors who: the Saudis, Iran and Israel will be themselves controlled by Western powers to impose their own solutions on Lebanon, which will have increasingly little to do with the concerns of the local population.

When Hariri resigned Iran called it a Saudi stunt, and suggested the Saudis had written his resignation statement for him. So what do we call all these weasel words from the international community about supporting Lebanon now? Between a rock and a hard place, Hariri’s main policy is dead in the water. Yet again, a country with problems has turned to the West to help it, only to find that those who are supposed to be its greatest friends are worse than its enemies.

Inverted promises

If the West actually wanted to help any country resolve its refugee problems it would do two things. Firstly, it would commit to getting out of conflicts likely to create refugees, or ending those which have begun to do so and then getting out. Secondly, it would develop a comprehensive international resettlement programme involving all nations, rather than leaving individual border authorities to interpret international and national laws as they liked, on any given day, merely to encourage the idea that refugee equals problem.

The West is always complaining about being engulfed by a “migrant crisis” whilst ignoring the fact that most refugees and displaced persons are in third world countries. The huge influx of Syrian conflict victims into Lebanon is merely the latest in a series of such mass migrations, which dwarf those into places like Turkey, the ones the West are always complaining about. It cannot provide meaningful practical support for Lebanon to address this problem without implicating itself in creating these refugees and lying about the relative numbers, so Hariri is unlikely to get more than a few well-publicised camps out of this promise.

Nor is Hariri likely to see any “investment in Lebanon”. If more money does come, it cannot be targeted at business and infrastructure, as this would merely give the warring external powers more to fight over. In order to achieve anything the investment would have to be in political institutions which would make the need for external funding unnecessary. These could be a more powerful state funding mechanism, as most countries have, or direct donations to the respective parties to bring them into the democratic fold.

But any such investment would come with the usual strings attached. While Syria invades with troops, the West will invade with finance. One form of foreign domination will be replaced with another, as energy resources and effective political power will be shared out between Western donors, even if acting through regional proxies, rather than conflicting regional states.

Confirming Hariri in post means extending the already unhealthy relationship between the West and his Saudi sponsors, who are technically under an arms embargo but not when those arms are used to further Western interests in Yemen and elsewhere. If this move is aimed at Hezbollah, Iran will doubtless react by encouraging it to either opt out of democratic politics or to destroy the new “Zionist democracy” from within. Neither option would be acceptable to Lebanon, but would be seen in the West as a necessary price to pay for establishing a greater presence there and increasing the demonisation of Iran.

Our problem is your problem

The Lebanese government has done its best to keep its country out of the larger machinations surrounding the Syrian conflict. It is arguable that only a country with the traditions of Lebanon, both sectarian and inclusive, could have brought Hezbollah into the political fold to any extent at all. It was the West which wanted to end those traditions by removing the confessional system, until the Lebanese themselves confirmed revised versions of it in the Taif and Doha Agreements, in spite of all they had been through which others blamed on that system.

In the light of this, it is equally likely that the West-Saudi Arabia relationship was responsible for Hariri’s original resignation, rather than it being a Saudi initiative or his own idea. The most visible example of external interference in Lebanon is the continued presence of the Syrian army there, even though troops were supposed to withdraw in 2005. This presence should be untenable for purely Syrian reasons, as the West is doing all it can to overthrow Assad. But Syria can still maintain a significant armed presence in Lebanon in spite of that conflict, an ongoing embarrassment which is little reported in the West for exactly this reason.

If Lebanon isn’t working, the West can attack these Syrian troops there with impunity. Removing them would partly achieve the goal of “re-Lebanising” the country, but also leave Hezbollah itself, the local force regarded as terrorist by the West, as its de facto successor. If the West didn’t want that, it would have moved in long ago in another anti-terrorism operation. Removing Syrian troops would make Hezbollah’s armed resistance to Israel an armed resistance to Lebanon itself, but that would give the West further excuses to do what it wanted politically without actually helping anyone on the ground.

Two camps, no solution

If the attempt to prop up the current Lebanese government had been well-intentioned, it would have been part of a larger programme of de-escalating conflict in the Middle East. However Hariri’s Paris summit came two days after Donald Trump set back community relations in the Middle East by approximately 800 years, by declaring that he would recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Are we to believe that Trump did not know the reaction this move would generate? Violent protests have erupted throughout the Arab world, and beyond, at this act of hubris. Yes, it was one of Trump’s campaign promises. But it puts the US firmly on one side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and puts every step it takes in the region under question – what does the US really want, if it so blatantly sides with one conflict party and antagonises the other?

Lebanon was reoriented towards the Arab world, as its ethnic makeup suggests it would always have been, in the Taif Agreement. It may be able to disassociate itself from an internal conflict in Syria, but not an Arab-Israeli one, particularly when Israel still celebrates devastating large chunks of Beirut in retaliation for Palestinian terror.

Lebanon has predictably called for sanctions against the US over the move, a call which few will listen to but everyone will hear. No one will sanction the US for the sake of Lebanon, but they will see that Lebanon is in line with majority Arab opinion. This will provoke the usual competition about who the true representatives of that opinion are, and how the rest should relate to them.

With the Arab world supporting Assad in Syria, and Hezbollah having always done so, Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem is likely to strengthen rather than weaken Syria’s hold over Lebanon. This again indicates that a proxy war against Hezbollah/Iran is what the West has in mind, a war which would result in either Western defeat, and with it the defeat of Lebanon as a viable entity, or a new Lebanon in which Western powers exploit the political system just as Middle Eastern ones do now.

Furthermore, such a conflict would further marginalise Lebanon’s once-dominant Maronite Christian community. This naturally looks more towards the West than the Muslim communities do, but its influence has been progressively eroded with Western help. The fact that the President of Lebanon must be Maronite, but the present one is nevertheless allied with Hezbollah, tells its own story.

Any solution to Lebanon’s conflicts, both internal and externally sponsored, must involve the Maronites, but they seem to be the last in the queue for consideration, despite the fact they are not currently fighting anyone. They would have nothing to lose by accepting external help to state their own case, and their future will depend on how acceptable that external helper is to the new Western, rather than Arab or Iranian, power brokers.

State in name

Proxy wars in Lebanon suit the West as well as the combatants. The Iranian reaction to Hariri’s original resignation suggested that direct conflict was now more likely. As Iran is still a Western pariah, the West would have had to get involved. Hariri has been persuaded to stay not for “the stability of Lebanon”, a stability which was the envy of its neighbours before the West refused to allow it to conduct its affairs in a different way. It is about the stability of the West and the Arab world, at the expense of Lebanon, the convenient sacrificial lamb.

Lebanon can no longer hope to disassociate itself from what others want to do in Syria or anywhere else. On balance, Lebanese prefer a national government of any complexion to direct foreign rule, even if foreign rule is described as “peacekeeping” or “protection from invasion”. But they will only have their own government for as long as it suits the West to allow the country to be dominated by either the same proxy conflicts it is trying to rid itself of, or Western sponsors who merely seek to change the terms of those conflicts.

Left to its own devices, Lebanon could resolve many of the problems in the Middle East. Before the civil war it did so on a daily basis, by doing things its own way and prospering. Changes were needed from time to time, but the system itself encouraged those changes. Only when Lebanon’s neighbours were encouraged to fight proxy conflicts there to prevent things getting worse between themselves did the country descend into violence. Even then, this soon transformed into what sort of independent Lebanon a consensus wanted, not which foreign sponsor should have the upper hand.

The West has tolerated the extension of that violence, in various guises, until now, to prevent Lebanon demonstrating how wrong the West is. Now it has taken its government hostage just when it is determined to implement a policy which will do that, if it succeeds. Did that happen by chance? The Lebanese government is being supported to help destroy Lebanon, and there is little its people can do about it until the West overreaches itself in this attempt.

Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

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Libya: The Forgotten Reason North Korea Desperately Wants Nuclear Weapons

Authored by Ted Galen Carpenter via The National Interest,

The United States and its allies continue to cajole and threaten North Korea to negotiate an agreement that would relinquish its growing nuclear and ballistic-missile programs.

The latest verbal prodding came from President Trump during his joint press conference with South Korean president Moon Jae-in. Trump urged Pyongyang to “come to the negotiating table,” and asserted that it “makes sense for North Korea to do the right thing.” The “right thing” Trump and his predecessors have always maintained, is for North Korea to become nonnuclear.

It is unlikely that the DPRK will ever return to nuclear virginity. Pyongyang has multiple reasons for retaining its nukes. For a country with an economy roughly the size of Paraguay’s, a bizarre political system that has no external appeal, and an increasingly antiquated conventional military force, a nuclear-weapons capability is the sole factor that provides prestige and a seat at the table of international affairs. There is one other crucial reason for the DPRK’s truculence, though. North Korean leaders simply do not trust the United States to honor any agreement that might be reached.

Unfortunately, there are ample reasons for such distrust.

North Korean leaders have witnessed how the United States treats nonnuclear adversaries such as Serbia and Iraq. But it was the U.S.-led intervention in Libya in 2011 that underscored to Pyongyang why achieving and retaining a nuclear-weapons capability might be the only reliable way to prevent a regime-change war directed against the DPRK.

Partially in response to Washington’s war that ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003, ostensibly because of a threat posed by Baghdad’s “weapons of mass destruction,” Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi seemed to capitulate regarding such matters. He signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in December of that year and agreed to abandon his country’s embryonic nuclear program. In exchange, the United States and its allies lifted economic sanctions and pledged that they no longer sought to isolate Libya.

Qaddafi was welcomed back into the international community once he relinquished his nuclear ambitions.

That reconciliation lasted less than a decade. When one of the periodic domestic revolts against Qaddafi’s rule erupted again in 2011, Washington and its NATO partners argued that a humanitarian catastrophe was imminent (despite meager evidence of that scenario), and initiated a military intervention. It soon became apparent that the official justification to protect innocent civilians was a cynical pretext, and that another regime-change war was underway. The Western powers launched devastating air strikes and cruise-missile attacks against Libyan government forces. NATO also armed rebel units and assisted the insurgency in other ways.

Although all previous revolts had fizzled, extensive Western military involvement produced a very different result this time. The insurgents not only overthrew Qaddafi, they captured, tortured and executed him in an especially grisly fashion. Washington’s response was astonishingly flippant. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quipped: “We came, we saw, he died.”

The behavior of Washington and its allies in Libya certainly did not give any incentive to North Korea or other would-be nuclear powers to abandon such ambitions in exchange for U.S. paper promises for normal relations. Indeed, North Korea promptly cited the Libya episode as a reason why it needed a deterrent capability—a point that Pyongyang has reiterated several times in the years since Muammar el-Qaddafi ouster. There is little doubt that the West’s betrayal of Qaddafi has made an agreement with the DPRK to denuclearize even less attainable than it might have been otherwise. Even some U.S. officials concede that the Libya episode convinced North Korean leaders that nuclear weapons were necessary for regime survival.

The foundation for successful diplomacy is a country’s reputation for credibility and reliability. U.S. leaders fret that autocratic regimes—such as those in Iran and North Korea—might well violate agreements they sign. There are legitimate reasons for wariness, although in Iran’s case, the government appears to be complying with its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that Tehran signed with the United States and other major powers in 2015—despite allegations from U.S. hawks about violations.

When it comes to problems with credibility, though, U.S. leaders also need to look in the mirror. Washington’s conduct in Libya was a case of brazen duplicity. It is hardly a surprise if North Korea (or other countries) now regard the United States as an untrustworthy negotiating partner. Because of Pyongyang’s other reasons for wanting a nuclear capability, a denuclearization accord was always a long shot. But U.S. actions in Libya reduced prospects to the vanishing point. American leaders have only themselves to blame for that situation.

Hillary to Trump: You’re Doing War All Wrong

(ANTIMEDIA) — According to former secretary of state and twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump is doing war all wrong.

In an interview aired Sunday on CNN “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” Clinton attacked Trump’s handling of the Iranian and North Korean situations. Specifically, Clinton said Trump’s attempts to pull out of the Iranian nuclear deal reached in 2015 basically mean “America’s word is not good.”

“Why on earth would we want two nuclear challenges in Iran and North Korea at the same time?” Clinton propositioned. “I think it’s very dangerous,” she added.

Clinton also said Trump’s position on the Iranian nuclear deal casts Iran as the victim in the situation:

“If Iran is complying, which all the evidence [suggests they are], then all of a sudden, instead of working to isolate Iran on every issue, we are giving Iran the spotlight — the aggrieved-party spotlight.”

“That makes us look foolish and small and plays right into Iranian hands,” she said.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Clinton took her criticism even further, speaking out against Trump’s saber-rattling rhetoric against North Korea. In a speech Wednesday, Clinton said Trump’s overhyped war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was damaging America’s interests.

“Americans, as well as Koreans, have every right to be concerned about what path we are heading down,” she said.

“Picking fights with Kim Jong Un just puts a smile on his face,” Clinton added.

Clinton did not offer any particular solution to the current conflict, acknowledging there were no easy answers to the U.S.-North Korean stand-off. Nevertheless, she asserted that “cavalier threats to start a war are dangerous and shortsighted.”

Trump’s anti-Iranian position, particularly in relation to the 2015 nuclear deal, makes little sense politically (or even geopolitically).

Regardless, this is the same Hillary Clinton who vowed to “ring” China with defensive missiles if Beijing did not keep a lid on North Korea.  It is the same Clinton who erupted into Riddler-style laughter when asked about America’s plans for going to war with Iran.

Hillary Clinton also single-handedly plunged Libya into chaos before saying “We came, we saw, he died” in a separate interview and again erupting into a fit of laughter over the death of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

She also voted for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and was supportive of al-Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria. Her leaked emails showed she knew Saudi Arabia was financially sponsoring ISIS all while she accepted Saudi money on behalf of her foundation.

Trump is almost certainly doing war all wrong — not just in Hillary’s eyes — but that doesn’t mean her advice on these topics should necessarily be heeded given her vast list of criminal and violent behavior.

Creative Commons / Anti-Media / Report a typo

Summer Of "Mass Displacement" Continues: 1.3 Million Libyans In Need Of Emergency Assistance

Though Western media and much of the entire world have long forgotten about Libya, we never will. While the Nobel Peace Prize winning "humanitarian" minded architect of the 2011 US-NATO intervention (and author of Libya"s current hell) continues to pen his presidential memoir in the midst of an epic retirement tour of yachts, golf courses, and hidden celebrity islands, Libya still burns out of control.

As we"ve recently noted, the mass flow of migrants and asylum seeking refugees is not going away and remains a political flashpoint for European front line countries reeling from the immigrant wave. In an updated situation report on Libya issued earlier this summer, the United Nation"s World Food Program (WFP) published some shocking numbers:

Civilians in Libya continue to suffer as a result of conflict, insecurity, political instability and a collapsing economy. According to the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan, 1.3 million people are in need of emergency humanitarian assistance.

July 2017 UN figures. Source: UN World Food Program (WFP)

This means 20% of the entire Libyan population (estimated at 6.4 million according to the UN) is still in dire need of basic necessities of life such as food and housing. The WFP further notes on its main Libya page that Africa"s fourth largest country enjoyed economic stability and independence until 2011 - the year Gaddafi was overthrown and murdered at the hands of NATO sponsored militants (bold emphasis is WFP"s):

At that time Libya, as one of the world’s most prolific oil-producing nations, maintained large trade surpluses. Although the country’s oil wealth did not percolate down to the wages of ordinary citizens, until 2011 the cost of food at household level was offset to some extent by a welfare state that offered free education and healthcare. Now, the country has a trade deficit and is gripped by a civil war opposing tribal groups, Islamist groups, various other militias and administration forces.

Libya’s population is suffering a major humanitarian crisis. This involves poverty, insecurity, gender-based violence, mass displacement, shortages of food and cash in banks, and frequent power cuts.

In 2010, a year before the NATO war, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) assigned a Human Development Index (HDI) ranking of 53 to Libya (out of 169 countries ranked, Libya ranked highest on the African continent). The HDI is a composite statistic which measures comparative quality of life around the world with regard to education, lifespan, wages, and general standard of living. For example, Libya ranked above Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Brazil, and South Africa for multiple years running through 2010 and was categorized as having "High Human Development". Libya has now fallen to 102 in the world according to the UN"s 2016 HDI report.

Right up until the eve of NATO"s air campaign against the Libyan state, international media outlets understood and acknowledged the country"s high human development rankings, though it later became inconvenient to present the empirical data. A February 2011 BBC report summarized as follows:

During Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year rule, Libya has made great strides socially and economically thanks to its vast oil income, but tribes and clans continue to be part of the demographic landscape.

Women in Libya are free to work and to dress as they like, subject to family constraints. Life expectancy is in the seventies. And per capita income – while not as high as could be expected given Libya’s oil wealth and relatively small population of 6.5m – is estimated at $12,000 (£9,000), according to the World Bank.

Illiteracy has been almost wiped out, as has homelessness – a chronic problem in the pre-Gaddafi era, where corrugated iron shacks dotted many urban centres around the country.

Libya went from an HDI ranking of 53 (with an HDI Value shown above) in 2010 to 102 in 2016. The UN identifies 2011 as the beginning of a continuing "mass displacement" of Libyans as the country remains in war-torn chaos. Chart source: Actualitix.

World Bank GNI numbers through 2016.

The 2011 war and aftermath essentially created a failed state with a once economically independent population now turned largely dependent on foreign aid and relief. Now considered to be at "emergency levels" of need, prior to NATO intervention Libya was not even on the WFP"s radar:

Before the crisis, the World Food Programme (WFP) had a minimal presence in Libya, with the country operating only as a logistics corridor between Sudan and Chad.

How"s that for "Arab Spring" blossoming of democracy, freedom, and prosperity courtesy of France, Britain, and the US?

Via Wiki Commons, "History of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi" Gross Domestic Product (based on Purchasing Power Parity methodology)

Not surprisingly, as of this week there are still "respected" members of the press willing to defend regime change experiments and "democracy promotion" abroad while quoting Iraq War architects like Elliot Abrams (thankfully Trump nixed him for a State Dept. position). They will perpetually live on in their own fanciful unreality while filling up columns in places like the Washington Post.

The ever-insightful Adam Curtis characterized the state of unreality under which most in the West still live when he concluded a 2012 post-mortem analysis on Libya - a very fitting conclusion to the still unfolding yet already forgotten about story of NATO"s dirty little "humanitarian" war:

The question at the heart of this whole story is - Who was the ventriloquist? And who was the dummy?

Maybe we were the dummy? By allowing perception management with its simplifications, falsehoods and exaggerations to create a simplified vision of the world - we fell into a fake universe of certainty when really we were just watching a pantomime.

And now as the Arab Spring unfolds and reveals the true chaos and messiness of the real world - above all the horror of what is happening in Syria - we find ourselves completely unable to understand it or even know what to do. So those stories get ignored while we follow others with clearer and more simplified dramas which have what seem to be obvious goodies and baddies - thank god for Iran, North Korea and Jimmy Savile.

It is unlikely that even the hard empirical data will awaken either neocons or liberal interventionists from their pantomime regime change fantasies.

Oil Just Plunged To A $48 Handle After Survey Suggests OPEC Output Jumped In July

Extending losses from Goldman"s overnight report noting the minimal impact of Venezuelan sanctions, WTI crude just crashed below $49 on heavy volume after Bloomberg reports that a survey suggests that OPEC"s July oil output rose by 210K to 32.87mmb/d, led by growth in Libya who upped production by 180Kb/d to the highest since June 2013.

The recovery of crude production from Libya is undermining OPEC’s efforts to curb its output as the African nation pumps unabated.

Total crude production from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in July rose 210,000 barrels a day from June to reach 32.87 million barrels a day, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts, oil companies and ship-tracking data.

Libya -- which along with Nigeria is exempt from making cuts as it seeks to restore output lost to internal strife -- led those gains, adding 180,000 barrels a day. Production rose to 1.02 million barrels a day, the highest level since June 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Not exactly confirming the "market is rebalancing" narrative...

The S&P 500 desperately tried to ignore crude"s early weakness but this recent move is dragging stocks lower...

The $50-level is “a psychological level. People are really beginning to realize that the market probably needs a steady beat of bullish information to continue to rally,” Gene McGillian, market research manager at Tradition Energy, says to Bloomberg. “If we don’t get a really positive inventory report this week, the market is vulnerable to a nice little turnaround” after rallying the last couple of weeks

NATO’s New Libya Still Burning

In 2011, US and European policy think tanks, which both create and promote policy serving the collective interests of the corporations that sponsor them, promoted NATO military intervention in Libya. Under the guise of a humanitarian intervention, what unfolded was the long-planned overthrow of the Libyan government, then headed by Muammar Ghaddafi.

Unable or unwilling to commit significant ground troops, the majority of the fighting was carried out by militant groups with NATO air and covert ground support. Many of these militant groups would be later revealed as comprised of extremists, including Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

In essence, NATO overthrew a unifying government in Libya, placed entire regions of the fractured nation under the control of terrorist organizations and opposing militant groups, and allowed the nation to slid into chaos ever since.

The consequences of overthrowing the Libyan government in 2011 were well known long before the intervention even took place. Libya’s role as a destination for refugees and migrants fleeing socioeconomic turmoil across Africa was long-established. After NATO’s intervention, Libya has now become a springboard for those fleeing from across Africa, across the Mediterranean Sea, and into Europe.

The issue of pirates, smuggling, organized crime and many other ills the Libyan government had kept under control, have also predictably spiraled out of control.

Now, those same policy think tanks that promoted the Libyan intervention, lament over the catastrophe that has continued to unfold ever since.

Foreign Affairs, published by one of the most prominent of these policy think tanks, the Council on Foreign Affairs (CFR), has published a series of articles by various authors, illustrating a sort of “buyers remorse” regarding the now devastated North African state. Part historical revision, part spin and part shifting of blame, articles like, “Europe’s Libya Problem: How to Stem the Flow of Migrants,” go into great detail about the problems now facing Libya and its neighbors.

The article laments:

Nearly 11,000 migrants arrived on Italian shores in just the last five days of June, following nearly 80,000 in the first half of 2017. Over 2,000 have perished at sea since the start of this year. The vast majority came from sub-Saharan Africa and embarked from the Libyan coast.

It then notes how Europe has been attempting to deal with the ongoing migrant crisis, claiming:

The European Union (EU) has been searching for a way to stem the flow of migrants and handle the tens of thousands who arrive in Italy on a daily basis. The EU’s current policy approach aims to shut off the route through the central Mediterranean and strengthen Libyan coastal patrol and enforcement capacities at sea. But it is unlikely to be effective or humane, given the sheer volume of migrants and the number of groups that profit from trafficking them, not to mention the weakness of the Libyan navy and other official security structures. 

The final sentence, noting the “weakness of the Libyan navy,” is particularly ironic, since it was NATO that attacked and sent many of the Libyan navy’s vessels to the bottom of Libya’s harbors.

The article concludes, offering no practical means of stemming the crisis besides waiting for the next Ghaddafi to unite Libya’s currently warring factions, eliminate or confine Western-sponsored terrorist organizations mainly based in the east, particularly in Benghazi, and rebuilding the nation’s economy to once again offer incentives for refugees and migrants to live and work in Libya rather than travelling onward toward Europe.

Nowhere in Foreign Affairs’ article is it mentions that the only reason Libya is now in chaos is not despite NATO military intervention, but because of it.

Unifying Libya will be difficult. Another Foreign Affairs article, titled, “Filling the Vacuum in Libya: The Need for a Political, Not Military Solution,” admits just how fractured the nation is:

The GNA [Government of National Accord] barely controls the capital, Tripoli, through militias that are only nominally under its authority. Although the GNA recently succeeded in pushing a rump government—containing remnants of the Islamist-dominated parliament that was elected in 2012—out of the capital, it was long in coming, and these rival factions continue to prove a threat to Tripoli.

Meanwhile, in the eastern part of the country, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, a former military officer under Qaddafi, and his Libyan National Army (LNA)—a coalition largely made up of eastern, anti-Islamist militias—are aligned with the House of Representatives, which refuses to recognize the GNA.

Foreign Affairs notes the rising political as well as military prominence of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, a “strongman” who appears to have the most potential of creating anything resembling a unified Libya. However, that will leave Libya once again in the same position it found itself before the 2011 intervention, with a strongman running the nation, and likely to drift further and further away from US and European interests until yet another proxy war is engineered, promoted by think tanks like the CFR and fought.

Again, despite Foreign Affairs’ apparently in-depth analysis, it failed to isolate the true source of Libya’s upheaval and instability, NATO. It was the 2011 intervention that upended stability not only in Libya, but created a chain reaction of violence and chaos that was felt as far west as Nigeria, Mali and Niger. This violence prompted, or more accurately, served as a pretext for the reintroduction of French troops in several of its “former” colonies. It has also served as a pretext for US Africa Command’s (AFRICOM) continued expansion.

Ultimately, Libya is a showcase of the chaos and regression that NATO intervention brings, and serves as the greatest case for isolating, containing and by all means, opposing and obstructing further use of NATO military forces anywhere beyond NATO’s own borders. The enduring chaos that is currently consuming nations like Libya also serve as a warning of what awaits nations like Syria and beyond should they fail in dissuading the West from further intervention within their borders.

It has been 6 years since NATO divided and destroyed Libya and the nation still remains fractured and fighting. The notion that NATO and its Western membership hold the solution to problems the West itself intentionally created should not be entertained, and, if international organizations, courts and laws had any meaning, NATO would be barred from any further role regarding Libya, beyond paying reparations for what it has done.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.  

Libya&#039;s Oil King Won&#039;t Be Stopped By OPEC

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

Conflict-torn Libya, divided between rival factions in the east and the west, recently reached 1 million bpd of crude oil output - for the first time since 2013.

The oil production recovery has put in the spotlight the chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC), Mustafa Sanalla, whom analysts see as a central figure in the oil sector, wearing the hats of both a diplomat and an oil minister. It will be Sanalla who will lead Libya’s delegation at the upcoming meeting of the Joint OPEC-Non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) in Russia, at which he will argue his country’s position and share production plans for the immediate future.  

And the monitoring committee will be eager to find out how much Libya’s plans could further offset the cartel and friends’ production cuts, from which the African nation is—for now at least—exempt.

Winning exemption at the time of the November OPEC deal wasn’t difficult for Libya, whose production was at the mercy of the civil strife and port blockades that plagued Libya over the past few years.

Libya’s production averaged 390,000 bpd throughout 2016 and 404,000 bpd in 2015, according to OPEC’s secondary sources. In the fourth quarter last year, output increased slightly to an average of 574,000 bpd.

Since then, the lifting of port seizures and blockades and the June interim deal with Germany’s Wintershall to immediately resume production in concession areas and related fields, which unblocked 160,000 bpd worth of output—has helped Libya to nearly double production.

The recovery of Libya and Nigeria’s crude oil production in the past two months has rekindled fears that rising supply from those two exempt African producers is offsetting a large part of the reductions and is depressing crude oil prices, alongside rising U.S. shale output.

Libya’s oil production recovery is the primary goal of NOC’s chairman Sanalla, who said in an opinion piece in the New York Times in June, referring to the country’s internal power struggles:  

“Between 2013 and last September, these blockaded nearly all of Libya’s main oil ports and tried to leverage that chokehold into ransom money and political power. That cost the country over $120 billion in lost revenues and most of its financial reserves.”

Arguing that the country’s oil and gas resources should not be held hostage to power struggles and fractious politics, Sanalla noted:

“Caught between those rivals, we at the N.O.C. intend to remain neutral until there is a single legitimate government we can submit to.”

Geoff Porter, founder of the North Africa Risk Consulting, said in an interview with Bloomberg, commenting on Sanalla’s role in the Libyan oil sector:

"His job is to produce as much oil as possible while he can and I think that’s what he is going to continue to try to do.”

However, years of neglect and attacks on facilities have damaged the output capacity, and infrastructure needs investments if Libya were to return to producing 1.6 million bpd, its output level before the 2011 revolution that toppled Muammar Ghaddafi.

Libya may be close to its capacity, and possibly has a short-term “implicit” ceiling of just above 1 million bpd, Mattia Toaldo, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Bloomberg.

So Libya could ‘cap’ not because OPEC asks it to, but because of infrastructure limitations.  

Unlike fellow exempt producer Nigeria—which has signaled that it could cap production when its production reaches a stable 1.8 million bpd—Libya has not specified any output level for a possible ceiling.  

Last week, Sanalla told Reuters in comments sent via email:

“Libya’s political, humanitarian and economic situation needs to be taken into account if we are going to talk about production caps.”

“Accurate information will remove uncertainty and help the market understand and respond to future supply levels,” NOC’s chairman noted.  

The OPEC/non-OPEC monitoring committee will receive the latest updates regarding Libya’s production and plans—and get more information about expected supply from the cartel—at the OPEC meeting this weekend. Despite the fact that the monitoring committee is only making recommendations to the larger group, it may consider whether further actions are needed in view of the latest supply figures and forecasts for the coming months.

A Complete History of John McCain Calling for War Around the World

(GPA) — Earlier this week notorious war hawk US Senator John McCain (R-Az) was diagnosed with brain cancer. While the liberal and conservative establishments are sending their regards, Geopolitics Alert instead compiled a list of reasons why we don’t care about McCain.

The list is of course a history of all the instances McCain has called for US-led intervention around the world. There’s obviously a long history here, so Geopolitics Alert has compiled the largest examples from Europe to Asia. We’ll start with the obvious wars first.

Afghanistan and Iraq

Obviously every US senator (besides California’s Barbara Lee) voted to give president George W. Bush the power to invade Afghanistan following the events of September 11th. However, McCain wasn’t happy with just moving to invade Afghanistan. No, he had other targets on his mind as early as the day after the towers fell.

Despite McCain’s claim in 2014 that “the Iraq war probably wouldn’t have happened” if he had won the 2000 Republican primary and then general election, this assertion seems ridiculous. On September 12th 2001, McCain appeared on MSNBC presenting a long list of countries he felt were providing a “safe harbor” to groups like al Qaeda. This list of course included Iraq and several other countries that appear later on this list.

Syria

Another country on that 2001 list (of course) was Syria. Now, the Bush regime may have never gotten a chance to continue toppling Mideast countries (thanks to the failure in Iraq and the exposure of that war being sold on lies). But McCain seemingly never lost sight of his hatred for Bashar Al-Assad.

Shortly after the Arab Spring “broke out” in Syria, McCain – and his constant partner in war crimes Sen. Lindsey Graham – quickly found communication channels with the “Syrian opposition.” Just a few short months after the US endorsed protests in Syria (even having their ambassador attend), McCain and Graham began calling for arms to start flowing to the Free Syrian Army and other “rebel” groups.

Libya

McCain’s plans for Syria never quite worked the way he wanted but he probably should’ve know they would never yield a positive result. If McCain didn’t want to look at Iraq to prove that point, he had another more recent example he could’ve used: the NATO intervention in Libya.

It was less than a year before McCain wanted to arm Syrian takfiris that he had supported with the bombing and no fly zones in Libya. McCain even wanted tougher actions against the country. Which has now become an anarchic Wild West that’s home to all sorts of horrors from the Islamic State to a new slave trade.

West and Central Africa

McCain is also a champion of the “war on terror” in other parts of Africa. While McCain hasn’t directly supported terrorists in some countries in Africa, he still has called for more US intervention across the continent.

This list includes countries dealing with Islamic insurgencies, such as Mali. McCain has also called for plans like “deploying Special Forces” to rescue girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria and intervention in Sudan, where McCain and his wife have invested money for some time.

Iran

Another country on the list of hated nations originally put forth by Bush undersecretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, and also another long time target of McCain, is of course Iran.

Although McCain has always said “he prays” there will never be at war with Iran, the man constantly calls for it and even jokes about bombing the country when he feels the mood is right. The truth of the matter is, McCain’s positions towards Iran are so hostile that even flagship neoconservative institutions like the Cato Institute think he is too hawkish.

Bosnia and Kosovo

But McCain isn’t satisfied with just backing salafi jihadists in the traditional Middle East and North African theaters. He’s also backed violent radicals across the fringes of Europe. This trend really started in the mid 1990’s when McCain was a vocal supporter of then president Bill Clinton’s war in Bosnia.

Many of the Muslims traveling to Bosnia joining the mujahideen there have joined groups like IS in recent years. And IS flags can occasionally be seen in the Sunni areas of Bosnia now. McCain was still backing potential takfiri movements, recently accusing Russia of interfering in local affairs, and calling for more US intervention in the country.

McCain made similar decisions when he advocated US intervention in Kosovo in the late 90’s. In the Kosovo conflict, McCain backed the Kosovo Liberation Army: a genocidal jihadist organization with ties to Al Qaeda under Osama Bin Laden.

Ukraine

Don’t be fooled into thinking that McCain only supports jihadists in Eastern Europe though! He also backs the overt Nazis acting as death squads for Kiev in the ongoing Ukrainian conflict.

This of course started in 2014, but McCain has continued to pledge support for Kiev’s crimes in the Donbass region to this day. This is all par for the course in McCain’s larger theme of challenging Russia– the country he believes controls the separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Russia

The story of McCain’s hatred of Russia spans back to the Cold War. We won’t get into McCain’s fear of communism that’s evolved into just general Russophobia. But we will say he didn’t have many excuses to focus on making threats towards Moscow for a good 15-20 year stretch.

This changed in 2008, with the war in South Ossetia between Georgia and Russia. During this conflict McCain was the loudest voice saying the US “should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia’s security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation.”

This same situation repeated in Ukraine in 2014 but McCain’s worst comments came this year. As soon as the US Intelligence Community’s accused Russia of interference in the 2016 US elections– and without any evidence– McCain was first to say the event was an “act of war.”

North Korea

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DRPK/North Korea) was also an early target of McCain’s making his September 12th wish list. More recently though, the restyled “Trump opponent” McCain was all-in on the new regime’s saber rattling. Calling on Trump to strike the nuclear armed country.

Bonus: China

China is kind of in its own class with McCain, who’s made strange vague threats towards the country in the past. Such as “the Arab spring is coming to China,” whatever that means. China may be a target on the periphery for McCain but he does still encourage antagonizing the country to this day. Calling for things like more “freedom of navigation drills” and other naval exercises in the South China Sea.

So, in summation, next time someone asks why you don’t care about John McCain’s clock running out, show them this article. McCain has encouraged the spread of death worldwide. The day he leaves congress will be a victory for the human race.

By Jim Carey / Republished with permission / Geopolitics Alert / Report a typo

This article was chosen for republication based on the interest of our readers. Anti-Media republishes stories from a number of other independent news sources. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect Anti-Media editorial policy.

Libya at the Crossroads: Where is the Caravan of History Headed?

Although in recent months, Libya has not been in the focus of attention of top-level politicians and the global media at large, nevertheless, several developments have occurred that are actually quite important, albeit hardly noticeable to the outside world.

The gradual accumulation of these not-very-significant changes in the domestic political situation and on the foreign policy background could potentially lead to a qualitative shift and scrapping of the fragile balances that formed after the overthrow of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and led to the coexistence on Libyan territory of three governments with varying degrees of legitimacy. One of these administrations is headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, who is recognized by the international community as Leader of the Libyan State based on the inter-Libyan Agreement that was duly signed in Skhirat (Morocco) on December 17, 2015. The second one is based in Tripoli, and is mostly made up of Islamist groups operating from the capital, as well as from outlying cities like Misurata and Sabratha (having no legitimacy except for control over part of Tripolitania). The third is based in Tobruk (Cyrenaica) and is made up of a legitimately elected parliament recognized by the international community and the Libyan armed forces led by Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who has long been fighting against radical Islam. At the same time, the south of Libya (the historical Fezzan) remains partially under the control of the forces of Khalifa Haftar, in part under the rule of the forces of Ali Kahn, a former officer of the troops of Muammar Gaddafi, but supported by Algeria.

The first “pebble” that could engender an avalanche was the liberation of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi in Zintan on June 9 by the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, an armed group cooperating with Marshal Haftar. He, like the marshal, is an implacable enemy of radical Islam, since it was precisely these groups, supported by France, Turkey and Qatar, that played an ominous role in the tragic fate of his father, and indeed of all of Libya. This figure has great political experience and weight and, probably, considerable financial opportunities. But he has not yet announced his political position, and it is possible that he will form an independent pole of national-patriotic forces around himself, which will comprise in part of representatives of the former regime and partly on the large Libyan tribes that formed the backbone of his father’s power. We cannot exclude his alliance with the ‘Council of the Tribes and Cities of Libya’, led by the faithful gaddafist Taher Dachesh. The weaknesses of the Gaddafi movement include the fact that they do not control the oil fields and terminals of the country, which are firmly held by the people of Marshal Haftar and Aguila Saleh Issa.

It would be logical for Saif al-Islam Gaddafi to move towards the bloc led by Aguila Saleh (Head of Parliament inTobruk) and H. Haftar, taking into account the fact that the mother of this son of Gaddafi comes from the eastern regions of Libya (historical Cyrenaic). However, this path can be littered with significant obstacles connected with the fact that both forces in Tobruk are ready to enter into an alliance with Saif al-Islam, as well as those who are with the representatives of the former regime in very ambiguous relations, like the same marshal H. Haftar, who, at one time, deserted from the camp of Gaddafi and lived in the United States for an extended period of time, and in Libya, some regard him as a person who defends more than simply national interests alone. Therefore, it is unacceptable for Saif al-Islam to cooperate with the French, who stole from the Libyan state money that was in the accounts of French banks, with Nicolas Sarkozy having openly betrayed Gaddafi. There are other obstacles, chief of which being connected with the fact that the internationally recognized government in Tripoli, just like the International Criminal Court, still considers him a state criminal, and continues to look for him to bring him to trial.

However, with any development of events, it is clear that in the camp of fighters against Islamists, there is an explicit addition, and the balance of power is inexorably shifting in their favor. This is indicated by the case of the May 22 Manchester Bombing, in which a terrorist blew himself up at the Manchester Stadium during singer Ariana Grande’s concert performance. The investigation showed that the terrorist, Salman Ramadan Abadi, although a British citizen, was from Libya and, shortly before the terrorist attack, for which the Islamic State accepted responsibility, possibly came to Libya and received instructions from extremist groups from Misurata (where the Muslim Brotherhood runs the show).

This circumstance, along with the irreconcilable (as it is considered) attitude towards the Muslim Brotherhood Association on the part of the new US administration, could encourage Western governments to reconsider their relations with them (and in the struggle against the secular regimes of the Middle East, the United Kingdom and the United States have nurtured and supported them for decades). The first signs of this are, namely, the frequent contacts of Western diplomats with the H. Haftar faction.

Another sign is the introduction by US Congressman Tulsi Gabbard, a member of the committees of the House of Representatives for Armed Forces and Foreign Affairs, of a bill banning the US from selling arms sales to and participating in military cooperation projects with countries that provide weapons and finance terrorist organizations and their accomplices, along with providing any assistance to terrorist organizations in Syria. The Libyan Muslim Brotherhood falls directly under this category.

The next ‘pebble’ capable of provoking an avalanche may be the resignation of German diplomat Martin Kobler from the post of UN Special Representative, Head of United Nations Support Mission in Libya – a fact that was indicated on June 15. Kobler has been the force that, with the help of Western governments, strongly supported the Islamist entrenchment in Tripoli and wide representation in Sarraj’s government.

Kobler will be replaced by a well-known Lebanese public and political figure, Political Scientist, Professor of International Relations and Conflict Resolution at the French university Sciences-po (Paris) Ghassan Salamé. The UN Security Council confirmed him in this position on June 17. G. Salamé has not only served as Minister of Culture in the Lebanese government (2000-2003), but also actively participated in the early 2000s in attempts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, and did so in cooperation with the United Nations and jointly with the League of Arab States, which then was not the pathetic and helpless empty structure into which it has turned now. He can contribute constructively to the settlement, if only because he is an Arab and better understands his interlocutors. It should be borne in mind that Kobler has lived and worked in France for a long time, and, therefore, he will take into account the approaches and concerns of his “second homeland”. It should also be known that he is also a member of the consultative International Crisis Group, created in the nineties by globalists. Behind this group looms the figure of George Soros and a number of Western governments. This, of course, is no good for Libya, unless, of course, Salamé chooses to show his best qualities, including independence of action and decision making, as well as a readiness to work honestly towards the realization of the UN goals in Libya.

In other events that could affect the Libyan situation and create a well-defined international background, we can note the conflict that has erupted since June 5 between Qatar and a group of influential Arab states, namely Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and a number of other countries. These states have demanded, in a written ultimatum of June 14, that Doha state its compliance in refraining from supporting terrorist and extremist groups, including the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ that has thoroughly entrenched itself in Libya. It is no accident that the Tobruk government (with the exception of Fayez al-Sarraj himself) has immediately joined these states in enforcing these requirements. Moreover, Riyadh, Cairo and Abu Dhabi firmly support H. Haftar and his allies in the fight against the thugs from Misurata.

Thus, we are witnessing a whole chain of events in June 2017, including the military victories after June 20 of Marshal H. Haftar over the remnants of Islamist groups in Benghazi, slowly but inevitably knocking out a few trump cards from the hands of Fayez al-Sarraj and Islamist groups, essentially weakening them. Maintaining contacts with them is, of course, the norm for any self-respecting diplomacy, but it is obvious that it would be short-sighted and dangerous to stake on them to enter into any binding deals with them (which some capitals still do).

Nothing will help Fayez al-Sarraj now. This includes even the demonstrative support of NATO, with its Secretary-General (Jens Stoltenberg) whom he met on June 22. He only remains with part of the seaport of Tripoli under his control and zero support from the tribes, which is the most important factor in the formation of any kind of political structure in Libya. His government has failed to garner the support of the parliament, and after a threefold rejection of its nominated candidates, will no longer be approved.

We have already dwelt on the increasingly complex situation of the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’. The Skhirat agreements themselves have already expired and are held literally ‘on a wing and a prayer’. Of course, there is a UN Security Council resolution in support of them, but under the newly developing circumstances, it needs to be revised. The global super powers must understand this, and act accordingly.

Maxim Yegorov, a political observer for the Middle East, exclusively for the online magazine ‘New Eastern Outlook’.