Saturday, September 15, 2012

Libya - Doomed from Day One

People often ask me why the West doesn’t attempt a Libya-style intervention in Syria. After all, things are going so well in Libya. Oil production is up. But oil production is merely a mirage, as is security in Libya, which was doomed from the day one PG (post-Gaddafi) because of the way it was “liberated”.

On Wednesday, US envoy to Libya Christopher Stevens was killed along with three other American diplomats in a rocket attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.

What about the oil, that global elixir? Well, the violence will not bode well for Libya’s production ambitions, coming at a time when the country looked prepared for a boost in output and was banking on this for economic growth.

Security was already dubious at best, and now international oil companies will be more reluctant than ever. Those that are already there—Germany’s Wintershall AG, Italy’s Eni and France’s Total—will be seeking to beef up security and have already started sending some of their workers home.

If the picture was not clear from the onset of the post-Gaddafi atmosphere, it certainly came into focus earlier this summer when protests over parliamentary elections forced the temporary closure of the el-Sider oil terminal, the country’s biggest.  

Anyone who thinks that Libya will be a secure oil frontier after the formation of a new government next summer is mistaken. The road to destruction runs from Afghanistan to Benghazi (incidentally, the oil-producing region), branching off to southern Iraq and Pakistan’s tribal regions.

So, you ask, what about the controversial anti-Islamic movie apparently put together by an Israeli-American real estate developer with too much time on his hands?

Read more: http://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Africa/Libya-Doomed-from-Day-One.html

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