The ‘CIA Man’ In Libya Securing Oil Supply

Comments

• Mamdouh Salameh - 21st Apr 2019 at 3:30pm:
  Since 2011 the Libyan people have been suffering severe hardships and misery as a result of the joint military intervention by the United States, UK and France (or shall we say NATO) in Libya supposedly in support of the Libyan people rising against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. So to the Libyan people, it makes no difference to them whether their saviour is a CIA man or Russia-backed. They only want an end to the civil war ravishing their country and their lives since 2011.
  
  However, a sharp reversal of longstanding US policy which recognizes only the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli as the legitimate authority over Libya to pledging support to Benghazi-based Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA) is motivated by the need for Libya’s oil supplies to keep oil prices down for the 2020 US presidential elections. It has nothing whatsoever to do with ending the suffering of the Libyan people. Under the Trump administration’s foreign policy, self-interest also trumps morality.
  
  That basically what was behind President Trump’s telephone call to the Field Marshal Hafter on Monday praising him for securing Libya’s oil resources.
  
  Libya’s oil production has been at the edge of collapse since 2011. In 2010 Libya produced 1.66 million barrels a day (mbd) and exported 1.25 mbd to the EU countries. But since 2011, oil production has been erratic ranging from an estimated 300,000 barrels a day (b/d) to almost 1 mbd in 2018 with most of the major facilities, oilfields and exporting terminal disrupted from time to time.
  
  At 48 billion barrels (bb), Libya ranks ninth in the world in terms of proven oil reserves and the largest in Africa. Moreover, oil revenue accounts for 98% of Libya’s national budget.
  
  And while Muammar Gaddafi was a dictator, he at least provided stability and unity in Libya. However, he earned the ire of western oil majors (and by extension their governments) with his extremely tough terms for production-sharing agreements in Libya. But he particularly burnt his bridges with the United States when he proposed a gold-backed African currency that would be traded for African oil instead of the petrodollar.
  
  Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
  International Oil Economist
  Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London
• Nikos Retsos - 22nd Apr 2019 at 9:59am:
  Khalifa Hiftar is certainly the CIA's man to take over Libya and exploit its oil. We see what happens in Venezuela because China exploits its oil. The U.S. has gone so far in Venezuela as to appoint and recognize as president Mr. Guido, a U.S.puppet. Khalifa Hiftar has been a former CIA mercenary in Chad, but that mission failed, and Hiftar took residence in the U.S. as CIA mercenary pensioner - like the late Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani, not a CIA mercenary, but on a deal to curb the Kurdish rebellion and help Turkey - a U.S. ally- weaken the Kurdish effort to liberate Kurdistan, under a United Nations mandate in 1922. The point? Yes, foreign interests will prevail, because Khalifa Hiftar's is not an internal revolution for democracy, but foreign interests trying to install their dictator and exploit its oil cheaply in return of helping him staying in power - like the late Shah Reza Pahlevi of Iran. Nikos Retsos, retired professor of Political Sciences, USA.