With the end of the Gadhafi regime seemingly in sight, it is an opportune time to step back and revisit one of the themes we discussed at the beginning of the crisis: What comes after the Gadhafi regime?

As the experiences of recent years in Iraq and Afghanistan have vividly illustrated, it is far easier to depose a regime than it is to govern a country. It has also proved to be very difficult to build a stable government from the remnants of a long-established dictatorial regime. History is replete with examples of coalition fronts that united to overthrow an oppressive regime but then splintered and fell into internal fighting once the regime they fought against was toppled. In some cases, the power struggle resulted in a civil war more brutal than the one that brought down the regime. In other cases, this factional strife resulted in anarchy that lasted for years as the iron fist that kept ethnic and sectarian tensions in check was suddenly removed, allowing those issues to re-emerge.

As Libya enters this critical juncture and the National Transitional Council (NTC) transitions from breaking things to building things and running a country, there will be important fault lines to watch in order to envision what Libya will become.

Divisions

One of the biggest problems that will confront the Libyan rebels as they make the transition from rebels to rulers are the countryʼs historic ethnic, tribal and regional splits. While the Libyan people are almost entirely Muslim and predominantly Arab, there are several divisions among them. These include ethnic differences in the form of Berbers in the Nafusa Mountains, Tuaregs in the southwestern desert region of Fezzan and Toubou in the Cyrenaican portion of the Sahara Desert. Among the Arabs who form the bulk of the Libyan population, there are also hundreds of different tribes and multiple dialects of spoken Arabic.

Perhaps most prominent of these fault lines is the one that exists between the ancient regions of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. The Cyrenaica region has a long and rich history, dating back to the 7th century B.C. The region has seen many rulers, including Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, Italians and the British. Cyrenaica has long been at odds with the rival province of Tripolitania, which was founded by the Phoenicians but later conquered by Greeks from Cyrenaica. This duality was highlighted by the fact that from the time of Libyaʼs independence through the reign of King Idris I (1951-1969), Libya effectively had two capitals. While Tripoli was the official capital in the west, Benghazi, King Idrisʼ power base, was the de facto capital in the east. It was only after the 1969 military coup that brought Col. Moammar Gadhafi to power that Tripoli was firmly established as the seat of power over all of Libya. Interestingly, the fighting on the eastern front in the Libyan civil war had been stalled for several months in the approximate area of the divide between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania.

After the 1969 coup, Gadhafi not only established Tripoli as the capital of Libya and subjugated Benghazi, he also used his authoritarian regime and the countryʼs oil revenues to control or co-opt Libyaʼs estimated 140 tribes, many members of which are also members of Libyaʼs minority Berber, Tuareg and Toubou ethnic groups.

It is no mistake that the Libyan revolution began in Cyrenaica, which has long bridled under Gadhafiʼs control and has been the scene of several smaller and unsuccessful uprisings. The jihadist Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) has also traditionally been based in eastern Cyrenaican cities such as Darnah and Benghazi, where anti-Gadhafi sentiment and economic hardship marked by high levels of unemployment provided a fertile recruiting ground. Many of these jihadists have joined the anti-Gadhafi rebels fighting on the eastern front.

Sign-up for our
eNewsletter

First Name Last Name Email

We respect your privacy

But the rebels were by no means confined to Cyrenaica. Anti-Gadhafi rebels in Misurata waged a long and bloody fight against government forces to gain control of the city, and while the Cyrenaican rebels were bogged down in the Ajdabiya/Marsa el Brega area, Berber guerrillas based in the Nafusa Mountains applied steady pressure to the Libyan forces in the west and eventually marched on Tripoli with Arab rebels from coastal towns such as Zawiya, where earlier uprisings in February were brutally defeated by the regime prior to the NATO intervention.

These groups of armed rebels have fought independently on different fronts during the civil war and have had varying degrees of success. The different roles these groups have played and, more important, their perceptions of those roles will likely create friction when it comes time to allocate the spoils of the Libyan war and delineate the power structure that will control Libya going forward.