Iran's Role in the Arab Spring of Libya by Iakovos Alhadeff - HTML preview

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“Sudan expels Iranian diplomats and closes cultural centers” September 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/02/sudan-expels-iranian-diplomats-closes-cultural-centres

“South Sudan : Independence”

Between 9 and 15 January 2011, a referendum was held to determine whether South Sudan should become an independent country and separate from Sudan. 98.83% of the population voted for independence.[32] Those living in the north and expatriates living overseas also voted.[33] South Sudan formally became independent from Sudan on 9 July, although certain disputes still remained, including the division of oil revenues, as 75% of all the former Sudan's oil reserves are in South Sudan.[34] The region ofAbyei still remains disputed and a separate referendum will be held in Abyei on whether they want to join Sudan or South Sudan.[35] The South Kordofan conflict broke out in June 2011 between the Army of Sudanand the SPLA over the Nuba Mountains.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sudan#Independence_.282011.29

“Arab uprising: Country by country – Libya”

Libya's uprising began in February 2011 after security forces in the eastern city of Benghazi opened fire on a protest.

Anti-government demonstrations then erupted in other towns before eventually reaching Tripoli. They swiftly evolved into an armed revolt seeking to topple to Muammar Gaddafi

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-12482311

“Iran Invites Libya Rebel Chief”, August 2011

http://nation.com.pk/international/31-Aug-2011/Iran-invites-Libya-rebel-chief

"Iran's Interests and Values and the 'Arab Spring'", April 2011

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As for Libya, Iran's perspective is different. In the past, the two countries had established a cautious and realistic relationship. The Gaddafi regime had supported Iran in the 1980–1988 war with Iraq. But the issue of prominent Shii leader Imam Musa al-Sadr, who disappeared during a visit to Libya in 1978, has negatively affected Iran-Libya relations. Overall, Iran's policy has been supportive of the popular uprising in Libya.

Yet an important challenge for Iran here is the intervention of North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other Western forces in the Libyan crisis. Iranian leaders feel that the West's policy of connecting the security of the region to the security of the world and thereby justifying any preemptive attack aimed at preserving Western democratic values such as fostering democracy or fighting terrorism, etc., would continue to lead to a broad interpretation of using force in the region—with a subsequent increased foreign military presence which can be a source of extremism and instability as witnessed in the cases of Afghanistan and Iraq.

http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/20954/irans_interests_and_values_and_the_arab_spring.html

“BP returns to Libya after 30 years”, May 2007

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Oil giant BP is to confirm its return to Libya's oil and gas fields for the first time in more than 30 years.

A spokesman for prime minister Tony Blair, who is on a five-day visit to Africa, spoke of BP's return at a briefing today.

BP has not operated in Libya since 1974, when the oil industry was nationalised.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/may/29/bp

“Oil companies fear nationalisation in Libya”, March 2011

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Western oil companies operating in Libya have privately warned that their operations in the country may be nationalised if Colonel Muammer Gaddafi’s regime prevails.

Executives, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the rapidly moving situation, believe their companies could be targeted, especially if their home countries are taking part in air strikes against Mr Gaddafi. Allied forces from France, the UK and the US on Saturday unleashed a series of strikesagainst military targets in Libya.

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Most of the world’s large international oil companies have producing assets in Libya, including Spain’s Repsol, France’s Total, and Italy’s Eni, which is the largest single investor there. Germany’s Winstershall – a unit of BASF – and OMV of Austria are also present.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/67d1d02a-5314-11e0-86e6-00144feab49a.html#axzz47yuRRMgV

“Iran hails death of long-time ally Qaddafi as great victory”, October 2011

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Iran on Friday hailed the death of long-time ally and former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi as a “great victory” and called for an immediate exit of foreign troops from Libya, the official IRNA news agency reported.

“This has been the doomed fate of all oppressors and tyrants throughout history because they ignore peoples’ rights when they rule their countries in the manner that they do,” Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying.

https://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/10/21/172895.html

“Turkey's PM Erdogan urges Col Muammar Gaddafi to quit”, May 2011

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Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi to step down "for the sake of the country's future".

Mr Erdogan said the Libyan leader had ignored the wishes of his people by using force against them.

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President Bashir said the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a Darfuri rebel group, had attacked Khartoum three years ago using Libyan trucks, equipment, arms, ammunition and money.

He said God had given Sudan a chance to respond, by sending arms, ammunition and humanitarian support to the Libyan revolutionaries.

"Our God, high and exalted, from above the seven skies, gave us the opportunity to reciprocate the visit," he said.

"The forces which entered Tripoli, part of their arms and capabilities, were 100% Sudanese," he told the crowd.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13265825

“Turkey's Secret Proxy War in Libya?”, March 2015

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Libya’s internationally recognized Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni accusedTurkey last month of sending weapons to his Islamist rivals who seized the Libyan capital of Tripoli last year. “Turkey is a state that is not dealing honestly with us,” he told Egyptian television. “It’s exporting weapons to us so the Libyan people kill each other.”

These accusations are not new. In January, the speaker of Libya’s Parliamentclaimed, “Turkey still supports the terrorist militias in Libya.” In December, a prominent Benghazi-based activist claimed that Ansar al-Sharia in Libya, a faction loyal to al-Qaeda that has carried out acts of political violence against the recognized Libyan government, is partially funded by “businessmen linked by trade ties to Turkey.” Two weeks ago, the acting interior minister of the embattled government in Tobruk claimed that Turkish and Qatari aircraft are flying in and out of the Mitiga air base, which is controlled by the opposing Dawn coalition, amounting to “clear and explicit support” for terrorism in Libya.

The Libyan Civil War, which began after Qaddaffi’s fall, is often describedas a proxy war, with Egypt and the United Arab Emirates reportedly backing al-Thinni and the officially recognized government in Tobruk, and Qatar and Turkey reportedly backing the Islamists and other opposition factions. Turkey has made no secret about backing the country’s Islamists after Qaddaffi’s fall in 2011, and it openlyliaises with the self-declared Islamist government in Tripoli. Yet Turkey’s Libyan envoy complains that these latest allegations are a “dangerous smear campaign.”

While hard evidence is still elusive, specific reports of Turkey’s growing role in the conflict began in January 2013, when Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper reported that Greek authorities found Turkish weapons aboard a ship that was headed for Libya after the vessel stopped in Greece due to bad weather. In December of that year, the Egyptian press also reported that the Egyptian customs intercepted four containers of weapons from Turkey believed to be destined for Libyan militias.

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Another purported weapons route for Turkish weapons may lie to Libya’s southeast. In January, a Libyan military official claimed that both Turkey and Qatar were supplying Operation Dawn with weaponry through Sudan, which has long been a transit point for Iranian weaponry to extremist groups across the Middle East. Interestingly, when the government banned Turkish planes from Libyan airspace in January, it also announced that Sudanese planes were no longer permitted.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/turkeys-secret-proxy-war-libya-12430

“Why Gaddafi's Now a Good Guy”, May 2006

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At the time, it may have sounded like the typical ramblings of the Libyan leader. But now, a year later, Gaddafi and Bush do apparently see eye to eye. On Monday, Gaddafi accomplished one of history's great diplomatic turnarounds when Secretary of State Condeleezza Rice announced that the U.S. was restoring full diplomatic relations with Libya and held up the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya as "a model" for others to follow. Rice attributed the ending of the U.S.'s long break in diplomatic relations to Gaddafi's historic decision in 2003 to dismantle weapons of mass destruction and renounce terrorism as well as Libya's "excellent cooperation in response to common global threats faced by the civilized world since September 11, 2001."

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1194766,00.html

“How Hugo Chavez botched the Arab Spring”, November 2012

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Indeed, before popular revolution broke out, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela had enjoyed a certain degree of popularity within the Arab world for championing the cause of Palestinian rights. In a serious miscalculation, however, Chavez came out against the Arab Spring once revolution spread from Egypt to Libya and then onward into Syria. In so doing, Chavez and others discredited themselves and probably discouraged any lasting alliance between Arab revolutionaries and sympathetic forces in South America.

The reasons for Chavez's missteps aren't too difficult to fathom. As I wrote in an earlier Al Jazeera column, the Venezuelan leader fashions his foreign policy in accordance with the notion of counteracting the "US Empire". While such an approach is understandable, it has led Chavez into some very questionable alliances with the likes of Bashar al-Assad of Syria, for example.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/11/20121149556382124.html

“Libyan-Sudanese Relations”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya%E2%80%93Sudan_relations#cite_note-Joffe-4

“The 38-year connection between Irish republicans and Gaddafi”, February 2011

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-12539372

“Libya's lessons for Iran”, February 2010

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During the 1970s, he approached China, India, and Pakistan. Fortunately, despite the fact that India and Pakistan lay outside the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) – and thus were not subject to its prohibition on disseminating arsenals – they, along with China, rebuffed his requests. Undaunted, he sought to acquire technologies to produce the weapons. Here, the non-proliferation dikes failed.

Gaddafi exploited a network of opportunity. French-controlled mines in Niger provided uranium ore. An undisclosed country conveyed a pilot uranium conversion facility. And the Soviet Union followed with a research reactor from which Libyan scientists extracted small amounts of plutonium.

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Faced with the re-imposition of harsher measures, and with the pragmatists continuing their push to steer the country in a new direction, Gaddafi relented, trading the nuclear programme for political normalisation. On 31 May 2006, the US reopened its embassy in Tripoli, ending the quarter-century hiatus in diplomatic relations.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/feb/15/iran-united-nations-libya

“Sudan, Uganda: The End of a Rivalry”, September 2015

https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/sudan-uganda-end-rivalry

“Timeline : Al Qaeda”, September 2006

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May, 1996
Bin Laden leaves Sudan and returns to Afghanistan In the mid1990s Sudan comes under growing international pressure to expel Osama Bin Laden. It is not clear whether he is actually forced to leave the African country but in May 1996 he returns to Afghanistan.