Libya and the Italian Migrant Crisis

Tom Friedman is off traveling in Italy. Between risotto and gelato he has managed to share some of his thoughts about the migrant crisis in Italy… and the new Italian government that has effectively shut the door to new African migrants.

Sagely, Friedman analyzes the problem. It derives, he explains, from the ill-fated and ill-conceived NATO overthrow of the Libyan government of Col. Qaddafi. Since most of the African migrants are coming through Libya, this makes good sense.

About the Libyan invasion, Friedman is clear minded, up to a point:

Toppling Qaddafi without building a new order may go down as the single dumbest action the NATO alliance ever took.

It took the lid off Africa, leading to some 600,000 asylum seekers and illegal migrants flocking to Italy’s shores in recent years, with 300,000 staying there and the rest filtering into other E.U. countries. This has created wrangles within the bloc over who should absorb how many migrants and has spawned nationalist-populist backlashes in almost every E.U. country.

And, also:

Democracy was never the dominant driver of the uprising against Qaddafi. It was much more a revolt by anti-Qaddafi tribes in eastern Libya. But when you just let a tribal revolt rage in a country with few real institutions, you end up with what you have in Libya today: multiple tribes and militias all competing for power and control of oil, creating vast zones of disorder, which both African and Arab refugees and economic migrants can take advantage of to reach the Libyan coastline to try to catch a human trafficking boat to Italy.

Now, I don’t need to identify the dog that didn’t bark in this account. Friedman never mentions the names of the great political leaders who engineered this debacle. He does not mention French president Sarkozy, British prime minister Cameron… and of course, he says nothing about the role played by American president Barack Obama or American secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Yes, indeed, folks, the disastrous policy toward Libya was orchestrated by politicians Friedman idolizes, Obama and Clinton. Thus, he is incapable of holding them to account for the disaster they produced.

While we are at it, why not mention the fact that the Middle Eastern refugee exodus was also provoked by the feckless Obama, through his policies in Iraq and especially Syria.

As might be expected, Friedman blames it on Trump and Putin. Convenient, don’t you think? But, at least he sees clearly that Obama and Clinton produced a geopolitical nightmare in Libya.