The Great Man-Made River Project.

Murder. Terrorism. Madness. Imperialism. Double crosses. And dirty dealing. It’s a familiar and brutal plotline but this story unfolded over decades on the fringes of American consciousness despite our periodic yet critical involvement in it.

A few weeks ago, Libya pulled its oil off the market causing brief turmoil in the global markets. It was yet another reminder of instability in the country since the collapse of the Gaddafi government in 2011. And it reminded me of a story that I’ve been meaning to write for quite a while.

The first time I heard about the Great Man-Made River was in college. It was a poli-sci class on dynasties and revolutions in the modern age. The professor’s contention was that no empire could emerge without first going through a “green revolution.” More than industry, warfare or technology, a nation or empire had to first figure out how to nourish itself. From there it could trade meaningful crops for other important goods and create a multifaceted economy. It is possible for a nation-state to build upon a single strength like oil and minerals or fishing or sea ports, but it would be too reliant upon these activities for legitimacy and vulnerable to economic downturns, invasions or natural disasters. Only a diverse agricultural economy can provide a wide enough foundation to build a robust and secure empire.

This class was where I first came to appreciate the abundance of our geography. Fertile soil for diverse agriculture. Dense forests for timber. Oil and natural gas. Iron for steel. Having stolen this land, we took the agricultural practices of the conquered peoples to feed the first wave of immigrants who brought with them the seeds of knowledge of the first industrial revolution. But this revolution couldn’t be fully realized without the human capital necessary to develop it so we stole people to cultivate the stolen land.

And so the alchemy of stolen people tending to stolen land combined over the next many decades, and indeed centuries, to produce the most fearsome and fulsome nation state the world has ever known. With our newfound wealth we manufactured weapons of war so magnificent our forces would roam the surface of the earth and take what we wanted and even dig beneath it if necessary.

Oil, gas, minerals. Everything was ours for the taking.

As the United States emerged as a superpower on the international stage after World War II, there was one part of the world that escaped our economic wrath: Northern Africa. This was the colonial and imperial playground of the European nations. The French in Algeria. The British in Egypt. The Italians in Libya. But like so many other parts of the world, this region would soon fall under the gaze of our foreign policy eye when proven oil reserves were discovered in Libya.

Beneath the desert sand of one of the largest territories on the African continent lay the potential of economic salvation for the disparate peoples who lived for centuries in poverty. But to the conquerors in Europe and the burgeoning American empire, Libyan oil held as much if not more importance as rapid growth and industrialization required fuel. Lots and lots of fuel. Not only was oil laying undisturbed and unclaimed in abundance, it was of a much finer quality than other reserves from around the world.

In John Wright’s A History of Libya the author describes the strategic and chemical importance of Libyan oil:

“Any oil found there would not have to pass through restricted or vulnerable international waterways, such as the Suez Canal or the Hormuz Straits at the Persian Gulf’s entrance, on its short trans-Mediterranean voyage to the large and growing markets of southern and western Europe. When found, Libyan oil offered extra bonuses of high quality, light and low in sulphur, and thus easily refined.”

And so the race began to claim the oil beneath the desert. But first, the oil lusting nations had a problem to solve. Libya was not yet a nation, at least in the modern western sense of a nation-state. In order for the oil and gas companies to do business in this part of the world, they needed a proper counterparty.

Chapter One: Benghazi

To most in the west, Libya is a forgotten land. On the rare occasions we pay attention to it, it’s usually tied to a disaster that directly or indirectly involves oil or regime change. I think it’s fair to say that the only connection most of us have to Libya is the attack on U.S. citizens in Benghazi, the result of relentless attacks from Republicans attempting to discredit former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And I think it’s fair to say that most of the Republicans who hung on every word of every hearing and the thousands of news stories would be hard pressed to find Benghazi on a map or even know that it’s in Libya. Seriously.

The story was a sensation because of Clinton’s involvement in our diplomatic and intelligence presence in both Tripoli and Benghazi. Before “her emails,” this was the primary obsession of a GOP in full attack mode to discredit the Obama administration and derail Clinton’s presidential run before it could even get started.

This effort aside, the attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in 2012 was a legitimate tragedy and public relations nightmare for the Obama White House because it was unclear what we were still doing in Libya given the revolution that took place a year before. What made this attack even more tantalizing from a media perspective was the date that it occurred.

On September 11, 2012, the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked by heavily armed militants. The attack unfolded in two waves: the first targeted the diplomatic compound, and the second struck a nearby CIA annex. The initial assault began at around 9:40 p.m. local time when attackers stormed the consulate, setting buildings on fire. U.S. Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and Information Management Officer Sean Smith were inside the compound when the attack began. Despite efforts by U.S. security personnel, both men died from smoke inhalation.

Several hours later, a second wave of attacks was launched at the CIA annex where surviving personnel had retreated. During the defense of this facility, two former Navy SEALs working as CIA contractors, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, were killed by mortar fire. It’s been reported that their efforts to protect the Americans at the annex were instrumental in saving many lives, but they ultimately succumbed to the mortar attack.

Why did the CIA have an outpost there? Did the Obama administration ignore calls to heighten security measures? Did we have intelligence information to suggest the attack was being planned? What took us so long to respond? Why was the ambassador’s compound so exposed to militants? What did Secretary Clinton know?

From the attack in 2012 until the end of Obama’s term, the administration—and Clinton in particular—would be pelted with questions in no fewer than 30 public hearings, including a House Select Committee on Benghazi. As soon as Donald Trump was elected, agents from Men in Black showed up with a neuralyzer and erased all GOP memories of Benghazi.

The breathless media coverage of this tragedy overshadowed the circumstances that led to it. The rogue militant groups that roamed the countryside were heavily armed and at odds with one another. Several groups were vying to control the population centers and Libya’s surprisingly modern infrastructure due to the enormous oil wealth tied to it. How these groups came to be, how they got their hands on such a massive arsenal and the reason we thought we could co-exist with them without a full military installation is the real story that needs to be examined.

Chapter Two: Bedouin Days

There were many hands involved in the creation of Libya, but few of them were Libyan.

Like many of the countries in Northern Africa and the Middle East, Libya was an invention of the European powers with the support of the new American empire. Like many of the Middle Eastern and Eastern European nations, the territory of modern day Libya was under the control of the Ottoman Empire for centuries. Unlike many of the Middle Eastern countries that came into being following the First World War, Libya wasn’t formally declared a nation state until after the Second World War.

The Ottoman Empire was in its waning days at the start of the First World War and ceding territory rapidly. Just prior to the war, Italy had already seized significant parts of the three primary territories known as Tripolitania in the northwest, Cyrenaica in the northeast, and Fezzan in the lower half of the country.

Desert covers 95% of the terrain with 800 miles of border shared with Egypt, 250 miles with Tunisia and 600 miles with Algeria. In the south, Fezzan touches Sudan, Chad and Niger. Despite its vast expanse, more than three-quarters of its population has always resided in the major port cities of Benghazi and Tripoli.

The Ottomans handed territorial control over the three territories to Italy following the Italo-Turkish war that preceded World War One, and it would remain in Italy’s hands for the first half of the 20th Century. While its interests were in the port cities primarily for their strategic location on the Mediterranean, the Italian colonizers faced periodic resistance from the Islamic Senussi clan from Fezzan. But by the early 1930s the revolutionary fighters were finally put down by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and in 1934 he consolidated the territories into what we now know as modern day Libya.

Rule under Mussolini was despotic but notable for Italian infrastructure investments into the port cities. However, these investments merely served the colonizer’s interests while the Libyan people remained in veritable squalor. For those who lived in the cities, life during the Italian occupation was miserable, but no more so than it always had been in terms of economic activity. In the desert areas, the bedouin population lived pretty much as they had for centuries but there was a burgeoning sense of Arab nationalism among the population and an increasing devotion to Islam among followers in Fezzan known as the Senussi.

After World War Two, with the Italian army vanquished and the countries of the Middle East and Eastern Europe once again up for grabs, Libya entered a new state of limbo. As John Wright notes:

“Libya was victimised by the Second World War, but eventually won great rewards from it. Italian rule was effectively ended, and was replaced by the temporary military administration of Britain in Cyrenaica and Tripolitania and France in Fezzan. In the course of eight years (1943-51), Britain willingly, and France more reluctantly, helped to bring the three provinces to independence under United Nations auspices as a federal Senussi monarchy.”

And thus, Libya became a quasi-independent state under monarchical rule under Sayyid Idris al-Senussi beginning in 1951. Idris was born into the influential Senussi family, a religious order that played a prominent role in Cyrenaica in the east. He became the head of the Senussi order in name only as a young man in 1916 and later helped lead the resistance against Italian colonization. To the western powers, Idris was seen as a stabilizing force due to his Senussi family roots and deep connection to the British whom he supported during World War Two. Again, Wright:

“Libya approached independence in a state of poverty almost unimaginable to future generations used to the spreading ease and welfare brought from the 1960s onwards by burgeoning oil revenues…Many in 1950 lived on little more than bread and tea, faced winter chill in discarded military clothing, and wore sandals cobbled from worn-out tyres. Yearly average income was estimated at a mere $35/head, the lowest in the Arab world. The fact was that a country on the fringes of and largely within the Sahara always needed to widen the very narrow economic options offered by agriculture and stock-raising on marginal lands subject, on average, to one or two years of devastating drought in every ten.”

Elsewhere in the region, nations were further along in their development, most notably Egypt to the east of Libya. In 1952, a year after Libya’s monarchy was established and recognized by the United Nations, Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the monarchy in Egypt and became the public face and beating heart of a new pan-Arab nationalist movement; a movement that would inspire a young Libyan militant who would perform the same miracle 17 years later.

Throughout the years under Idris, Libya began laying the groundwork of modernization, mostly with support from the British government. As an ally to western powers, Libya was seen as little more than a Cold War pawn with access to Mediterranean ports; for the most part the fledgling kingdom was left to its own devices. Thus began a slow and steady process of building educational facilities, upgrading the ports—most notably with western military bases—and a general framework of governance in the major cities. It was an impossible task with limited financial and natural resources. As Wright notes:

“King Mohammed Idris was a skilled and wily diplomat and negotiator, with a sharp and cynical understanding of the ways and weaknesses of the Cyrenaicans in particular and Libyans in general…He was no tyrant, no ‘strong man’ in the accepted Arab mould. In a state where the rule of law prevailed, he reigned as a benign despot; he executed no opponents and imprisoned few dissidents…He ruled by an obscure system of palace patronage and intrigue.”

All of that would change starting in 1959.

Chapter Three: Gold Beneath the Desert

The discovery of vast oil reserves in Libya in 1959 changed everything. Suddenly Libya was on everyone’s radar. As we mentioned in the introduction, not only was access to the Mediterranean a crucial advantage, the quality of Libya’s crude was exceptionally pure and therefore easy to refine. Major oil and gas interests from the west began to set roots in an ally nation that happened to be in desperate need of capital. And the British were all too happy to wean the new kingdom off its foreign welfare support.

When western corporations began exploring the region in earnest they not only discovered that the oil reserves were much larger than anticipated but there was something else beneath the sand. Something even more important to the people of Libya, if not its government: Water.

But the water would have to wait. There was oil to grab and money to be made. And boy did they make a lot of money. Even at a time when oil prices were relatively low due to the abundance in the Middle East and new discoveries in the world’s oceans, the money that poured into the kingdom was like nothing it had ever experienced.

And with newfound riches came new and bigger problems.

Most people find it shocking that countries manage sudden oil wealth so poorly. But context matters greatly. Money creates opportunities and opportunities create expectations. In a place with no meaningful infrastructure where people have been poor for generations and have little to no education, everything has to be created from scratch. And because there’s no trained labor force in waiting, the expertise to build and the wealth to finance these activities has to come from outside the country.

So money came pouring into the government and much of it went to foreign pockets. Even still, the inexperienced Idris government was suddenly awash in cash. The only trouble was it couldn’t spend it fast enough. So as foreign workers and companies came rushing into the cities and a service economy quickly formed to support it, it rapidly created vast inequality among the Libyans who grew increasingly frustrated at the situation. Again, Wright:

“Oil had raised popular expectations that no regime at the time could have satisfied, for the new wealth could not be distributed fast and fairly enough. For in taking on the traditional responsibilities of the extended family and the tribe, the state had to invest in relatively long-term social, economic and infrastructural projects. Many of these only yielded the intended results during the early years of the new revolutionary regime, which naturally took all the credit for them.”

We’re living this today in a small way and even we’re struggling with this. Think about the trillion-plus dollars that are allocated to the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act that require a decade to deploy and likely just as much time for it to impact the real economy in a way that all classes genuinely feel it. Now imagine dumping that kind of money into the desert. Against the backdrop of this activity other forces were brewing.

In addition to slowly building social, cultural and economic infrastructure from the ground up, the Libyan people were slowly building an identity. For the first time it was a player on the international stage with diplomatic ties to the world and investments pouring in from western companies. But the foreign workers who came in weren’t setting roots. On top of that, by the late 1940s, almost the entire Jewish population—some 40,000 Arab Jews in Libya—had already migrated to the newly formed state of Israel. The Italian population was also dwindling by the thousands each year. Most importantly, the remaining population began to see itself as Libyans; the fair-skinned Berbers of the north, the proud Tuareg warriors of the desert and the Tebu people of the Sahara. The amalgamation of ancient people fused proudly together as Arab Muslims under a new nationalistic banner.

The youth of the newly formed nation-state would know only this identity. They saw as the foreign companies came and extracted their wealth, leaving little visible evidence that any of it was coming their way. In spite of the many legitimate gains made under the Idris kingdom, corruption was rampant and the people were mostly still poor and uneducated. As the monarchy entered the 1960s it was met by several challenges from a restless population, many of whom were galvanized by Nasser’s pan-Arab nationalist government that had moved to expel the balance of western forces from Egypt. Nasser was seen as one of the most formidable Arab leaders on the world stage. By comparison, Idris looked weak and ineffective.

By 1963, small cells of disaffected youth began to gather and talk openly about the pan-Arab movement. These were mostly young, untrained and uneducated men who idolized Nasser. But they lacked the political skills to galvanize any sort of coordinated movement. Then, in 1967 the Arab world was turned upside down by the stunning defeat at the hands of Israel in the ‘67 war. For Arab leaders it was a devastating and embarrassing blow. For a group of young, angry militants in Libya, it was the spark they were looking for to coalesce the disparate groups behind a movement for change. From The History of Libya:

“When Israel went to war with the Arab states on 5 June 1967, Libyan forces had no chance to take part in the fighting. But mobs, probably inspired by Cairo Radio, took to the streets of Tripoli to kill Jews and burn their property; British and American interests in both Tripoli and Benghazi were also attacked.”

Revolution was in the air and in 1969, a final domino fell and cleared the way for a twenty-seven year old militant with zero combat experience or formal education to take over a nation.

Chapter Four: The Enigmatic Colonel Gaddafi

The monarchy in Libya lasted only 18 years.

The Idris government was fragile and only beginning to hit its stride thanks to investments from the British primarily and the sudden influx of oil and gas company money. As much as Idris was seen as a valid heir to an important family, he was also seen as a tool of the western governments. He was also a childless monarch without a succession plan, so when he passed away in 1969 after an illness, there was no obvious heir to his government.

There were several militant groups spread throughout the country that dreamed of a Nasser-like revolution. If you were taking action at the time, the longest odds were probably against a 27 year old from the rural part of Sirte, an underdeveloped coastal area in between Tripoli and Benghazi: Muammar Gaddafi.

Gaddafi’s rise to power is remarkably similar to Fidel Castro’s in Cuba just ten years prior. Both men were part of fringe groups that the establishment viewed as more of an annoyance than a threat. Both men walked bloodlessly into their respective capital palaces and declared themselves liberators, but not leaders at first. Both men had loose socialist style manifestos that could be conveniently altered to match the circumstances.

Unlike Castro, who had a robust formal education, Gaddafi was mostly uneducated. But he was deeply committed to Islam and to an increasingly outdated vision of pan-Arab nationalism. And while Castro remained faithful to the Soviet Union and Russia throughout his life and tenure, Gaddafi remained loyal to his own particular vision and felt no special allegiance to communist doctrine. Both men, however, were determined to hold onto power at any cost.

Though Gaddafi was inspired by Nasser’s pan-Arab ideology as a young man, as Wright notes:

“Nasser’s notions of Arab nationalism had by now run their course and were widely discredited; and he would be dead within a year. Young Gaddafi had arrived on the Arab stage at least ten years too late to renew Nasserism.”

Almost immediately upon seizing power in Libya, Gaddafi followed a typical dictatorial path to consolidate power and squash any potential dissent. He took control of the radio, expelled any remaining Jews, nationalized parts of the oil business and instituted Sharia laws and Islamic teachings in the newly formed education centers. In 1970, Gaddafi took the bold step to push back on agreements with the western oil companies and was pretty much responsible for moving the price of oil on the global markets for the first time in years by driving a hard bargain. This had the dual effect of increasing revenue to his government dramatically while also making the western powers hesitant about future investments.

Gaddafi’s calculation was sound at the time. He knew that the tensions in the Middle East were making it increasingly difficult to move oil through the straits. While the western powers began to look elsewhere for a release valve on oil supply, Gaddafi began closing ranks in earnest.

In 1972 he implemented the death penalty for anyone who dissented against his administration, banned all trade unions and closed the free press. He also did away with landlords and wages. From this point forward, Libyans could own a home but not for investment purposes. And the wage system was turned upside down with Libyans forced to work for unspecified wages that were nebulously guaranteed by the government. As one might imagine, the Libyan economy was slowly collapsing and the dictator began showing signs of paranoia.

Instead of instituting reasonable reforms, Gaddafi doubled down and intensified his brutality. Book burnings took place all over the country. Massive purges from within the government led to imprisonment, disappearances and public executions. At the same time, he increased the number of government officials by filling positions with loyalists and deputizing militias across the country to usurp the military.

These were all classic dictator playbook moves done under the auspices of a “cultural revolution” Gaddafi called the 3rd Universal Theory, a new middle way between communism and capitalism; a heavy handed form of socialism infused with strict Islamic rules.

Even though Gaddafi began cozying up to the Soviet Union, much to the annoyance of the United States, he was a dealmaker first and foremost. And his chief foreign policy initiative was to build on the credibility he had gained in the Arab world for helping move baseline oil prices. In 1975 he released the manifesto that would define the rest of his life in office. It was a three part series titled “The Green Book” that laid out a shallow and meandering vision for the future of Libya. He believed that he would come to be viewed as the preeminent leader of all Arabs much like his hero Nasser.

Over the next couple of years he toured the Arab states to promote his vision and in 1977 he changed the name of Libya to “The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” and revealed an all green flag in honor of his Green Book.

Not everyone was happy with Gaddafi’s newfound confidence, however. Again, Wright:

“Two important customers in due course managed to do without it; the US found alternative supplies in West Africa, Mexico and Alaska, while Britain did so in its own North Sea; both were able to modify their policies towards Tripoli accordingly. Gaddafi’s decision in the mid-1970s to move closer to the Soviet Union as a necessary powerful friend in a hostile world prompted Washington to designate the regime a threat to its interests in the Middle East and beyond.”

In the latter half of the ‘70s and first part of the 1980s, Gaddafi was also coming to realize that the other Arab states had little interest in his grand vision for pan-Arab nationalism. As he soured on the idea of collaborating with other states, and began feeling the squeeze from western nations, he realized that he was just as isolated as his nation had always been. The only difference was that he was sitting on billions of dollars.

The United States was entering the Reagan era and by proxy so was the entire world. The Reagan administration wasn’t impressed by Gaddafi’s rule or his antics. Several terrorist incidents over the next few years solidified the view among Reagan’s foreign policy team that Gaddafi was to be dealt with as an extremist and a threat. Sanctions were put in place that would hurt the Libyan economy and isolate it almost completely from western powers. Then in 1988, two events changed the entire U.S. calculus toward Libya.

In ‘88, Washington accused the Gaddafi government of producing chemical and other weapons of mass destruction.

(Sound vaguely familiar?)

Indeed, despite little evidence that Libya had the capacity to produce substantial weaponry, Washington classified Libya as a terrorist state. This would all come painfully to fruition with an event that altered the course of world relations with Tripoli.

On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 traveling from London to New York exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. The attack, caused by a bomb hidden in a suitcase in the aircraft’s cargo hold, killed all 259 passengers and crew members on board, as well as 11 residents of Lockerbie, bringing the total death toll to 270.

The tragedy prompted a massive international investigation, leading to accusations against the Libyan government for orchestrating the bombing. In 1991, the U.S. and UK charged two Libyan nationals, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, with planting the explosive device. The accusations were based on evidence that linked the bomb’s components to Libya and pointed to the involvement of Libyan intelligence agents.

Gaddafi vehemently denied the accusations and refused to extradite the two men. All bets were off and Gaddafi was officially isolated and his government was subjected to a decade of severe and restrictive sanctions that nearly crippled the nation.

So now we can more clearly see the whole picture. A nation artificially drawn by western powers gains a true identity as an Arab Islamist state. A territory with few natural resources except the one that everyone needs but comes with strings attached to a ruthless and chaotic dictator. Social, legal, cultural and educational infrastructures are fragile even while cash is plentiful. Cities have emerged but its inhabitants are subjugated and repressed by militias and economic mobility has been stymied by foreign entities. It might have been able to continue existing as a bedouin style state with loosely affiliated tribes and thriving ports but the discovery of oil corrupted the minds and hearts of power hungry forces both inside and outside of the region.

With no western allies remaining, Libya became the third rail even among Arab states who were going through their own revolutionary period. Libya was on its own. If it was to break free of dependence upon the rest of the world and if no one wanted to join forces under the banner of pan-Arab nationalism, then Libya would have to experience a different kind of revolution.

And that takes us back to where we started.

Chapter Five: The Green Revolution and the Great Man-Made River

Cut off from the world, Libya was still sitting on a resource that everyone wanted. But to re-enter the mainstream Libya first had to stand on its own two feet. It still had enough international clients that would take its oil so money wasn’t the issue. But to build an educated domestic workforce that was fed and happy, Gaddafi needed to start a green revolution.

When companies first started drilling for oil in Libya they came across several enormous natural water aquifers beneath the desert sand. In fact, the idea for the Great Man-Made River (GMMR) began taking shape in the 1960s and 1970s when the aquifers were initially discovered, though the engineering capability simply didn’t exist. But the seeds of an idea certainly existed before Gaddafi.

It was believed the aquifers contained water that had accumulated over millennia and if the Libyans could somehow bring it to the surface, there was enough to supply fresh water for irrigation and drinking water for hundreds of years. And if by some miracle, they could connect the aquifers, here was the potential solution to the water scarcity issue plaguing the northern coastal cities, where most of Libya’s population resides.

Libya’s coastal regions depend heavily on desalination and groundwater, but by the mid-20th Century, increasing demands from urbanization and agriculture had already begun to strain these sources. When he first rose to power Gaddafi was well aware of the potential of a plan to harness these deep desert aquifers and redirect the water to populated areas. However, the scale of the project meant that serious planning did not begin until the 1980s when it became clear that his personal future depended upon it.

The project officially launched in 1983, with ambitious goals that extended far beyond merely quenching the population’s thirst. It was designed to irrigate vast areas of arid land for agricultural use and reduce Libya’s reliance on foreign food imports. The possibility of transforming a country that was 95% desert into a thriving agricultural oasis was powerful enough for more than Gaddafi to begin referring to it as the 8th Wonder of the World.

The original plans for the GMMR underwent several revisions in the early years of the project. The initial conception had focused on small-scale, regional distribution systems, but as planning progressed, the scope became national in scale. Engineers and planners realized it would make sense to build an extensive pipeline network that could supply water to almost every major city and agricultural zone in the country.

And so, construction began in earnest in 1984, and the first phase of the project was launched in 1991. Gaddafi had something new to promote, declaring that the project was proof that Libya could achieve great feats without relying on Western countries. In many ways, the GMMR became inexorably tied to the Libyan political identity.

The project was divided into five phases, each focusing on different parts of the country and different purposes. The primary goal was to transport water from underground reservoirs in the southern desert areas, particularly the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System, to Libya’s more densely populated northern regions along the Mediterranean coast.

Phase 1 (1991): This phase was focused on supplying water to the eastern coastal cities, including Benghazi and Sirte. A pipeline system approximately 1,600 kilometers (994.19 miles) in length was constructed, which included hundreds of wells, pumps, and reservoirs to transport and store water from the Kufra and Sirte basins.

Phase 2 (1996): The second phase concentrated on supplying water to the western part of Libya, including the capital Tripoli and other surrounding cities. Like the first phase, it involved extensive pipelines, reservoirs, and water processing facilities.

Phase 3 (2000s): The third phase aimed to connect the two systems established in the first and second phases and expand irrigation systems for agriculture. It sought to integrate the infrastructure and enhance the project’s ability to supply water consistently across the country. By this time, over 2,500 kilometers of pipelines had been constructed.

The last two phases were planned but never fully realized. Phases four and five were intended to further expand the pipeline system to other regions of Libya and increase the capacity of the water transfer network. For Gaddafi, phase three would be the end of the road and the end of his life.

Chapter Six: Fallout

In a great twist of irony, the man who set out to foster an Islamic revolution to unite the Arab world was brutally and publicly executed by Islamic revolutionaries in what became known as the Arab Spring.

Gaddafi spent most of the late 1990s and the aughts attempting to get back into the good graces of the western powers, most notably the United States. Even though oil still flowed and the GMMR was coming to life, it’s difficult for a nation to thrive without international trade partners and support. And since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was only one superpower that mattered so the world was introduced to a kinder, gentler Gaddafi in public at least. Domestically, he was still the same rabid and ruthless dictator he had always been, which would ultimately prove to be his undoing.

But for a while, Gaddafi was back. By 1998 his public contrition act was good enough to get the harshest sanctions lifted. The United States even began referring to Gaddafi as a friend and ally. After all, he was in possession of sweet crude and there’s nothing we love more than accessible crude that’s easy to refine. Gaddafi cemented his relationship in the coming years with three important events. The first was in 1999 when he agreed to hand over the two Lockerbie bombing suspects for trial in a special Scottish court convened in the Netherlands. Only one of the men was found guilty in 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment, while the other was acquitted.

Then, in 2001, Gaddafi publicly and vociferously came out against the 9/11 attacks. So full-throated was his defense of the United States that he was often held up as the example of U.S. and Arab relations to the rest of the world. Then, in 2003, Libya officially accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing, agreeing to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the victims’ families.

That was it. Gaddafi was back.

More than just a vocal supporter of the Bush administration and the Blair administration in the UK, Gaddafi began to fancy himself as somewhat of a global ambassador of Arab goodwill and was even invited to address the United Nations. It was a stunning turn of events for a man who was once cut off by nearly every nation in the world, even among Arab nations who considered him to be toxic.

It should be noted that he was also getting weirder and weirder. His appearance altered dramatically over the decades. When he was young, he was classically handsome with severe features and typically in military garb, leaning into his self-proclaimed title of colonel. By the turn of the millennium, his countenance was puffy and distorted, likely the result of several cosmetic surgeries, and he was always clad in opulent Arabic clothing and headwear. And everywhere he traveled, he stayed in a massive Bedouin-style tent rather than hotels or state houses. In fact, there’s one funny story about the time he came to the United States for the first time and had trouble finding a place to set his tent. First, because it was so big and the logistics were difficult, and second because most people still considered him a murderous psychopath even if our government was willing to tolerate him for business purposes. And, well, he did eventually find a place to lay his tent and it probably won’t surprise you.

A certain billionaire’s lawn in Bedford, New York.

Gaddafi wouldn’t make it to see a Trump presidency so he never had a chance to thank him personally for the real estate accommodation. But Gaddafi’s transformation from public enemy number one to chief U.S. ally was complete by the time Obama took office in 2009.

In fact, the dictator began appearing more frequently on western media outlets and often praised Obama. This was mostly welcomed by the Americans, even if they cringed when Gaddafi took great pains to remind the world of Obama’s Muslim roots. Of course, Obama was a devout Christian but his father was born into a Muslim family in Kenya before they converted to Christianity when he was only a child, and as an adult Barack Obama Sr. became an atheist.

Anyway, Gaddafi would soon learn just how shallow his support was in the west, however. In spite of his gradual acceptance internationally, internally the final months of Gaddafi’s regime in 2011 were marked by escalating violence and chaos as Libya descended into civil war. The uprising against Gaddafi, which began in February 2011 as part of the wider Arab Spring, rapidly spread from the eastern city of Benghazi to other parts of the country. Facing heavy resistance, the regime launched brutal crackdowns on the rebels, but the opposition gained momentum with the support of NATO and Western countries.

In March 2011, the United Nations authorized a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians, leading to NATO intervention. The coalition, comprising the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other allies, provided crucial air support to the rebel forces. This intervention effectively neutralized Gaddafi’s air and ground forces, crippling his military capabilities. The rebels, organized under the National Transitional Council (NTC), received both military and logistical support, allowing them to capture key cities across Libya.

By late summer, the opposition forces had captured the capital, Tripoli, forcing Gaddafi to flee. He and his loyalists retreated to his hometown of Sirte, where they made a last stand. Despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned, Gaddafi refused to surrender. On October 20, 2011, after weeks of intense fighting, Gaddafi’s convoy was intercepted by NATO aircraft as he attempted to escape Sirte.

Rumors of Gaddafi’s capture spread like wildfire prompting this now infamous remark by Hillary Clinton as she sat down for an interview.

“We came, we saw, he died.”

Captured by rebel fighters, Gaddafi was dragged from a drainage pipe where he had been hiding. His final moments were chaotic and brutal, as he was beaten and taunted by his captors. He was then shot and killed, marking the violent end of his violent 42-year rule. His death symbolized the collapse of the old regime, but it also plunged Libya into a prolonged period of instability and conflict that continues to affect the country today.

Bring it home, Max.

“Today the government of Libya announced the death of Muammar Gaddafi. This marks the end of a long and painful chapter for the people of Libya who now have the opportunity to determine their own destiny in a new and democratic Libya. For four decades the Gaddafi regime ruled the Libyan people with an iron fist; basic human rights were denied, innocent civilians were detained, beaten and killed. Libya’s wealth was squandered. The enormous potential of the Libyan people was held back and terror was used as a political weapon. Today we can definitively say that the Gaddafi regime has come to an end.” -President Barack Obama, 2011

By the end of the third phase, the $10 billion planned Great Man-Made River had ballooned to a projected cost of $30 billion. 4,000 kilometers (2485.48 miles) of pipes had been laid, allowing five million tons of water to flow daily throughout the country. The upside of the project was clear. Water was the most precious resource in this desert nation and it delivered on the promise envisioned as early as the 1960s. But it was only three-fifths completed and it needed a decade or more to be fully realized. Moreover, it would require careful and expensive maintenance given the size and conditions under which it was built to exist.

Sadly, that careful and expensive maintenance is unlikely. The civil war and ongoing political instability have severely impacted the project’s ability to operate and there’s limited central governing authority to maintain the vast infrastructure. More than maintenance, there has been significant damage to parts of the river system. For example, during the Second Libyan Civil War, various pipelines were damaged. Renewed international sanctions, a lack of financial resources, and internal conflict have further hampered efforts to repair and maintain the system. In some cases, armed groups have targeted the pipelines to exert control over water supplies, exacerbating water shortages in some areas.

As of today, the GMMR remains partially functional, but its long-term sustainability is in question. It’s a critical juncture as the majority of the population continues to rely on it as a vital source of water and interruptions in service are becoming commonplace. There’s a sliver of hope on the horizon, but even this characterization may be generous.

Amidst the ongoing chaos and internal fighting among militant factions, there is an effort underway to establish a stable democratic government. A leadership council of appointed figures from various factions and political groups came together earlier this year to hold an internal election to find someone to run the interim coalition government. Mohammed Takala was chosen in a tight race to lead the government with the goal of establishing national elections. But most Libyans and outside observers are doubtful that this will ever take place, which puts Libya further and further away from the international legitimacy it requires to rebuild.

Aside from what I hope was a fascinating story, what’s the takeaway for us?

First off, Muammar Gaddafi was a monster. It’s hard to shed a tear for a man who terrorized his own people and succumbed to his own megalomania. But it’s hard to feel clean about the way it all went down. For all of his horrific flaws, since the late 1990s Gaddafi capitulated to every single demand the west made of him.

• He turned over the accused Lockerbie saboteurs and paid reparations to the victims.
• He dismantled what little there was of a weapons program even before 9/11.
• He offered sympathy and support to the United States after 9/11 and condemned those who committed the atrocities.
• He allowed U.S. oil and gas companies to rebuild their infrastructure in Libya and restored diplomatic relations with all western nations by the early 2000s.
• He was welcomed to the United Nations and praised the Obama administration, all while continuing to invest in water to irrigate the desert.

His Green Book might have been a catastrophe but his green revolution was nothing short of a miracle; a miracle disrupted by NATO and its western allies the moment the possibility emerged that he could be deposed.

We weren’t concerned with welcoming in a democratic government as Obama said in his remarks. Our real feelings were on display in Clinton’s throwaway comments. To be clear, at the moment of his capture he was considered a staunch ally of the United States. And when he was pulled from the gutter and bloodied by a band of young militants in the street before being publicly executed on film by his own gold-plated gun, we responded gleefully.

Less than a year later, we left ambassador Chris Stevens to die an equally ignominious death in a lightly armored compound after asking him to do the impossible: help rebuild a nation. If this impossible task couldn’t be accomplished by King Idris with the support of Britain and newfound oil wealth, and couldn’t be attained over the 40+ year regime under Gaddafi, what exactly were we expecting from a handful of people in a diplomatic outpost hundreds of miles from Tripoli?

What it shows is our callous disregard for humanity. We threw our support behind rebel forces we knew nothing about because we salivated at the possibility of regime change. Just like we did in Afghanistan. Just like we did in Iraq. Anywhere we feel like playing God. And the story always ends up the same.

There’s an old children’s book about a dog carrying a bone who stops to bark at his own reflection in a lake, thinking it’s another dog with a bone he wants. In the process, he drops his own into the water and winds up with nothing. This is the very definition of our foreign policy. Only in Libya, we didn’t just interrupt any possibility for democratic mechanisms to someday take hold—after all, Gaddafi wasn’t going to live forever—we imperiled the life force of an entire people by disregarding the wonder of the Great Man-Made River project. We might have aided in overthrowing a personally offensive and brutal despot, but in doing so we might very well have condemned a nation of innocent people and deprived the world of its eighth wonder.

Here endeth the story.

Image Source

• Felix O, United States Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Changes were made.