The Aftermath of NATO’s Libya War: ISIS Reportedly Seizes Mediterranean City

Almost exactly three years after NATO’s intervention in Libya
ended with what
we were told was a great victory, ISIS has reportedly taken
control of the Libyan city of Derna:

The black flag of ISIS flies
over government buildings. Police cars carry the group’s insignia.
The local football stadium is used for public executions. A town in
Syria or Iraq? No. A city on the coast of the Mediterranean, in
Libya.

Fighters loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are now in
complete control of the city of Derna, population of about 100,000,
not far from the Egyptian border and just about 200 miles from the
southern shores of the European Union….

The Libyan branch of ISIS now has a tight grip on the city,
controlling the courts, all aspects of administration, education,
and the local radio. “Derna today looks identical to Raqqa, the
ISIS headquarters town in Syria,” [counterterrorist Noman] Benotman
told CNN.

Meanwhile, Marc Lynch, who supported the Libya war, has posted
some
reflections this week on how he got that call wrong. One
interesting point he makes is that NATO helped pave the way not
just for the present chaos in Libya, but for the present chaos in
Syria:

I had placed a great deal of emphasis on the
demonstration effects of an intervention. My hope had been that the
intervention would act to restrain other autocrats from unleashing
deadly force against protesters and encourage wavering activists to
push forward in their demands for change. Unfortunately, this only
partially panned out and had unintended negative effects. U.S.
cooperation with the Gulf Cooperation Council states in Libya
compelled it to turn a blind eye to the simultaneous crushing of
Bahrain’s uprising.

The worst effects were on Syria. The Libya intervention may have
imposed a certain level of caution on Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad, leading him to search for just the right level of
repression to stay beneath the threshold for international action.
But that didn’t last for long and his violence quickly escalated.
Meanwhile, the Libya intervention almost certainly encouraged
Syrian activists and rebels—and their backers in the Gulf and
Turkey—in their hopes for a similar international campaign on their
own behalf. That unintended moral hazard probably contributed to
the escalation of Syria’s civil war.