Trump’s Reunification Initiative in Libya Will Only Prolong the Gridlock

What had long been a subject of quiet speculation among Libya analysts since last September has finally come into the public domain. In a recent interview with the Saudi state television channel Al Hadath, Massad Boulos, a senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump on Middle East affairs—and the father of Trump’s son-in-law, Michael Boulos—explicitly acknowledged a sweeping “American initiative” for Libya. Boulos has publicly framed the plan as a “Libyan-led unification effort,” but it also marks a distinct shift in Washington’s strategy toward the fractured country.

For more than a decade, Libya has been divided between warring rival power structures: A U.N.-recognized administration in Tripoli, now known as the Government of National Unity (GNU), controls the west, while the warlord Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army governs the east. The GNU is backed by the United Nations as well as by the U.S. and Turkey, while Haftar has the support of Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and France.

Details of the American initiative are scarce, as the White House has not publicly released even a draft document. But in his interview with Al Hadath, Boulos described the plan as a temporary power-sharing arrangement to reunify the country: Abdulhamid Dbeibeh, the current head of the GNU, would serve as prime minister, while Saddam Haftar, Khalifa Haftar’s son and deputy commander, would become the head of a reformed Presidential Council, Libya’s highest executive decision-making body.