(Transcript from SBS World News radio)
It's a country with two governments, two armies and scores of militia and the United Nations says it's in a state of chaos.
Since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, oil rich Libya has been beset by fighting and the UN fears a civil war could erupt.
Greg Dyett reports.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
The unrest in Libya since the demise of Colonel Gaddafi is in many ways the result of failed American foreign policy.
That's the view of Africa specialist, Doctor David Dorward from La Trobe University.
"The real problem is they overthrew a dictator with the help of the Americans and the Europeans and once again, there doesn't seem to have been any post overthrow plan of what they were going to do. The other thing is, the whole country is awash with weapons because once again the Americans supported all kinds of factions against Gaddafi, right, by just pouring in the guns, right, and, you know, they had as much control over those guns as they had in Iraq. In some ways this is a product of failed American foreign policy."
Doctor Dorward says at the heart of the current problems is division among the West's allies which are part of the fight against the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
Qatar and Turkey back the government in Tripoli that was elected in 2012 while Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates support the Western-backed government that's based in Tobruk.
The United Nations has launched talks in Geneva aimed at reaching a peace deal between the rival factions, a process some analysts say could take years.
Anas El Gomati is the founder of the Sadeq Institute in Tripoli.
He told Al Jazeera any solutions are way off.
"The real objectives are at what point do you find a power sharing agreement, a technical agreement that includes the warring factions, that incentivizes a notion of let's not fight but let's find a way in which we can repatriate you back into the state, into the institutions of state and find a peaceful solution going forward. That could possibly take years and I think many of the examples, the contemporary examples from Sub Saharan Africa, from Liberia, from Angola and from Rwanda, they don't always show a utopian end toward the conflict but they do show a way in which we can begin to stabilize and then build so I think if we think of this process as taking months then I think we're far short of the expectations of at least the UN and some of the parties that are there, this could take years."
The fact that Libya is an oil rich nation just makes any resolution all the more difficult says David Dorward.
"Libya provides an awful of oil to Italy and southern Europe as an alternative to Russia. That's why it's important, that's why so many players are involved. If Libya were just a desert state without any resources they probably wouldn't worry but it is you know a significant oil producer."
Manal Omar from the Institute of Peace in Washngton DC told Al Jazeera the regional players are part of Libya's problems - and they should back off.
"Ideally, I would like to see the regional players extract themselves than really leave it to the Libyans to be able to continue the process. What's been created by the involvement of the regional players is an artificial dynamic of power and I think it's important to be able to bring it back to the Libyan players and to be able to determine what they can actually live with."
Share
