Thursday, July 16, 2026, Chicago
Libya has often been described as yet another US-led Middle East regime change operations that led to catastrophic results for its people and for the world. Nearly 15 years after the 2011 overthrow of dictator Muammer Gaddafi, the country is indeed a mess. It is divided by civil conflict and being exploited for its resources by rival families working in conjunction with their foreign backers.
In part one of a special edition of badlands, Libya expert Anas el-Gomati, founder of Libya’s Sadeq Institute, and I recount Libya’s recent history and discuss the sudden international interest in Libya, including meetings between warlord Khalifa Haftar’s and both US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as fresh interest in the country’s oil reserves.
“The oil is the best reason why everybody always comes back to Libya,” he says.
There is also talk of a unification deal, between the two fractured halves of the country. “It’s being noted and penned as a unification deal,” he says. “It’s really a merger between these two rival families.”
As the powerful grapple for power and resources, ordinary Libyans are suffering immensely, with declining living standards and eroding infrastructure, exemplified by the 2023 dam failures in eastern Libya that led to the deaths of at least 7,800 people.
Also in this episode, I discuss the confusion over Donald Trump’s Iran strategy as well as the impact of the war on the global economy and the prospects for peace in interviews with India’s NewsX World.
