For someone who has read much about World War II in North Africa, the geography of the Libyan revolution brings back memories. What is today written in English as Tobruq, a port in eastern Libya, was known as Tobruk when it was a Italian fortress nearest Egypt which fell quickly to an Australian attack in early 1941. And later it was still named Tobruk when it was famously besieged by the Germans and Italians between May 1941 and November 1941. Early in the current revolt it fell to Libyan rebels, apparently without opposition.
A major concern during World War II in North Africa was logistics, as both sides pushed along the seacoast of Libya, only to run short of supplies as they went beyond Benghazi for the British, coming from the east, and the borders of Egypt for the Germans and Italians, coming from the west. Benghazi, today the leading city of the Libyan rebels, was taken by the British three times and by the Germans two times. Shortages of water, fuel, food, and ammunition were always a constraint for the advancing army, and increasing supplies the basis for recovery for the retreating army as it fell back towards its base. Today both sides of the Libyan conflict seem to operate mostly along the coastal highway. Although both the British and the Axis forces would maneuver in the desert, the coastal highway was their lifeline for supplies of food, fuel, and ammunition. Some things change little over generations.
During World War II neither the Germans nor British paid much attention to the local populations. Sometimes they were a source of guides and intelligence. Sometimes they rescued allied servicemen cut off in the desert. Reading any war history written over the last 60 years, they appear only as bit players. Today they take the important roles.
What to do with Libya not an easy decision for the victors. Libya was not a nation at that time. It had been kept as a fragmented colony by the Italians. They had separated the useful part of Libya between a western coastal region named Tripolitania, with its capital at Tripoli, and an eastern coastal region named Cyrenaica with its capital at Benghazi. There was also the sparsely populated region of Fezzan, in the far south.
Earlier the Italians had to fight the local tribes for control of Libya. The resistance was based on an Islamic religious order called the Senussi. Italian tactics including taking a captured insurgent leader up in an airplane, placing an identifying placard around his neck, and throwing him out of the airplane over a hostile village. He would be thrown out alive.
After the end of World War II the British wished to make the western and eastern halves of Libya separate counties. One based on Tripolitania, and the other based on Cyrenaica. (The French might have been given a trusteeship over Fezzan in the south.) Negotiations involving the British, Italians, the US, and the UN finally led to the joining the three Italian colonial partitions into one nation in 1952. The ruler: The remaining leader of the Senussi, elevated to the role of King. The union was an artificial creation of American and European interests. According to John Gunther, the famous journalist, in 1956, the eastern and western halves of Libya hardly communicated with each other.
Now the question is what is going to happen to Libya after 42 years of dictatorship. If there is one thing we have learned about the Middle East over the last decade, it is that ethnic, geographic, religious, and tribal identities remain strong over hundreds or even thousands of years. The British journal The Spectator even suggested that the divisions in Libya today could be traced back to ancient history of colonization from the eastern Mediterranean: Phoenician – Carthaginian – influences in the west, and Greek – from the Greek colony of Cyrene – influences in the east. A more recent division tracing back to the Arab conquest in the 700s, is between the Berber tribes that inhabited western North Africa at when the Phoenician first settled Carthage. The Berbers fought wars against Carthage and later against the Rome after the Romans destroyed Carthage.
Animosity between Berber and Arab has a long history of its own in North Africa. A Berber dynasty stating in Tunisia even conquered Arab Egypt and established the Fatimid Caliphate, ruling from Cairo between 969AD and 1171AD. The Fatimids were Shiite Muslims, and the only long lasting Shiite Caliphate in the history of Islam.
One modern possibility, based on history and geography, is that it is that the country will split into two parts, an eastern part and a western part, following the colonial division. Other nations will adapt to this new reality. Democracy in either part is unlikely. An Islamic state in the east is very likely. Qaddafi or some successor may hold onto the western part because they are mean men with money and guns.
Of course, the other thing we have learned from recent history is that what does happen in the Middle East is usually a surprise. Certainly the eagerness of European intervention using air strikes on the side of the rebels is changing the balance of power between the two sides. Right now, with the seacoast blockaded preventing anyone from sending arms to Gaddafi, and the rebels able to import some arms and food, Qaddafi's chances of winning are receding. But an outright rebel victory makes Islamic rule for the entire country likely.
Reading in tomorrow's paper that Qaddafi and his family were dead or had fled would not be surprising news. But independent of the short term outcome, based on history, maintaining unity between the west and east of Libya will remain an ongoing problem. Six decades after World War II, logistics remains a factor in keeping Libya unified by force. The local population of Libya may be no better able to provide the necessary logistics than were the British or Germans during World War II. Having it both ways, I suggest that if Libya is to remain unified, it will be through a continued European influence that supports European interests at the expense of Libyan interests, just like the modern creation of a unified Libya was the result of post World War II European interests.
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