One of Donald Trump’s closest aides reportedly had proposed dividing Libya into three and drew up a map on a napkin, the Guardian reported. Sebastian Gorka, a member of the President’s national security advisory staff, is said to have presented the plan to a senior European diplomat at a meeting during the presidential transition period. The European diplomat reportedly told him this would be “the worst solution” for Libya.
The plan was based on the old Ottoman Empire provinces, according to The Guardian: Cyrenaica in the east, Tripolitania in the north-west and Fezzan in the south-west, the report said.
Mattia Toaldo, a Libya expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations thinktank, told the Guardian: “This is like a litmus test of how much you know about Libya. If the only thing you know is that it was cut into three, then it shows you are clueless about the situation in Libya.”
Libya has been mired in a conflict between two competing governments since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 after a Nato-led intervention. At present, the country is with the West throwing its weight behind the UN-backed Government of National Accord in Tripoli, while Russia has given tacit support to an administration based in the eastern city of Tobruk and led by military strongman Khalifa Haftar. There are concerns among European states that Mr Trump will shift US support towards the Haftar government.
Mr Gorka is vying for the job of the as-yet uncreated White House post of presidential special envoy to Libya.The former national security editor for the far-right Breitbart News, Mr Gorka has expressed hardline policies for tackling radical Islam and sees the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group bent on infiltrating the US.
