The White House rejected the Pentagon plan to start bombing the positions of the terrorist group Daesh in Libya and deploy special military units there, media report. According to military plans, the main target of bombings had to be the native city of Muammar Gaddafi, Sirte, which was occupied by Daesh.
After Gaddafi was killed, a diarchy was established in Libya. And Daesh is acting more and more intensively there. Oleg Peresypkin, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the USSR to Libya (1984-1986), employee of the Center for Eastern Studies of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry, recalls: “In 1984, it was a really prosperous country. There were problems, but problems which Gaddafi could solve through various methods. I feel sorry for the Libyan people and for Gaddafi, who took a kind of martyr's death [in October 2011], which he certainly did not deserve.”
Speaking about the reasons for overthrowing the Libyan leader, Peresypkin notes: “Gaddafi did not satisfy the Westerners, especially the Americans. He actually helped all the leftist organizations that exist in Europe and in the Arab world. In other words, it is known that he supported, for example, the Communist Party of Lebanon, the Palestinian organizations. And the Americans were unhappy that he proposed the creation of a gold Arabic dinar, so that all the calculations on oil and gas supplies were carried out through this gold dinar, rather than through the American dollar. That’s why the basis of this external interference was not political motives, but economic ones.”
“According to some reports, Gaddafi's contributions to securities in banks amounted to about 180 billion dollars, many facilities of real estate were attributed either to the family of Gaddafi or to Libya. And they calculated it this way: a two-room apartment of some Gaddafi family member in London is one object, a second object is an oil refinery in the vicinity of Milan. Those are incompatible things,” the former ambassador states.
He believes that it was the external intervention of the French and Americans that played a crucial role in the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime. “Just like after every revolution, confusion and chaos appeared there. The chaos will be over one day. I think that common sense will prevail among Libyans, and they will do everything to at least come to terms. I believe that they must, of course, maintain this tripartite union that exists, of the three provinces, because they naturally complement each other. And all of these ideas to divide Libya, Cyrenaica separately, Benghazi separately, Ephesus separately, I think that from the point of view of common sense it is absolutely unacceptable for us or for the Libyans.”
