INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP
Washington is negotiating an accord that would piece Libya’s divided national institutions back together. But its political aspects have sown fierce controversy. Rather than risk the country’s tenuous peace, U.S. mediators should seek broader buy-in, focusing on budgetary and military issues in the interim.
What’s new? The U.S. is backing a power sharing deal aimed at merging the rival executives that rule eastern and western Libya. Negotiators have not publicly disclosed details of the agreement, but its opponents are already threatening to mobilise troops to stop it.
Why did it happen? This initiative is the latest iteration of a year-long U.S.-sponsored mediation effort that also includes steps intended to unify the state budget and the competing military coalitions.
Why does it matter? This U.S. effort has merit, not least because it seeks to move a stagnant political process forward. But the lack of transparency and, most importantly, one of the deal’s rumoured pillars – appointing Saddam Haftar, son of strongman Khalifa Haftar, as the country’s next president – could be incendiary.
What should be done? U.S. mediators should not rush to seal a political agreement that risks unsettling Libya’s relative calm. Instead, they should carry out broader political consultations and, in the meantime, seek progress on budgetary and military unification.
Libya is rife with rumours of a U.S.-backed agreement to unify the country’s two rival executives under a new power sharing arrangement. U.S. envoy Massad Boulos, the initiative’s chief facilitator, has acknowledged meeting with representatives of the two authorities, which control the country’s western and eastern regions, respectively. He has given no details, merely stating that the deal’s primary objective is to merge the country’s bifurcated administration and unify the military ranks.
Libyan participants have also been tight-lipped about the substance of talks, though they privately express confidence that an agreement is within reach. Meanwhile, however, one of the deal’s reported provisions – who would be president – has sown controversy so fierce that it could threaten Libya’s tenuous peace. U.S. mediators should keep working on unresolved political issues and seek broader consensus before formalizing a political deal among Libyan factions.
In principle, an agreement that pieces Libya’s fragmented institutions back together would be welcome. The country has been divided since 2015 between two governments and military coalitions that have periodically gone to war.
Fighting between them officially stopped in 2020, though assassinations still occur on occasion, along with bursts of violence among rival militias or smuggling rackets. Countrywide blackouts in July, coupled with drone attacks of unknown origin on fuel tanks in western Libya in August, were the latest reminder of just how unstable the situation is.
Ending the rift would be an important step, and supporters of the prospective deal believe it is the country’s best hope after years of faltering UN-led efforts to achieve unity and organize elections. Many Libyans, however, worry that so little is known about the deal’s content. They fear that an accord concocted behind closed doors could cement existing power structures, encourage authoritarian drift and institutionalize already widespread corruption.
If the agreement goes through without broader buy-in and with its most controversial provisions in place, it might trigger violent resistance. Particularly contentious is the notion circulating that Saddam Haftar, son of Khalifa Haftar, the leader of the east-based forces, would be made Libya’s new president. In 2019-2020, Haftar’s forces laid siege to the internationally recognized capital Tripoli, and enmity lingers.
If the agreement goes through without broader buy-in and with its most controversial provisions in place, it might trigger violent resistance; some western factions have already said they would issue a call to arms. In short, rather than ushering in a period of stability, the initiative could undermine the relative calm experienced in recent years.
With such possible unintended consequences, U.S. officials should resist the temptation to seal a deal quickly. Instead, they should keep working with Libyan parties to build greater consensus behind political arrangements and put safeguards in place to protect the country from an autocratic power grab.
Libyan leaders themselves ought to ensure broader buy-in before they sign off on any agreement. In the meantime, Washington’s priorities should be to push for reforms to Libya’s public finances and for measures aimed at narrowing the gap between the competing military coalitions.
Libya’s present political configuration has its roots in an October 2020 ceasefire, which ended Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s campaign to seize Tripoli but had the effect of freezing the country’s east-west military divide.
In March 2021, UN-sponsored talks gave rise to a short-lived unity government in Tripoli headed by Abdulhamid Dabaiba, whose task was to reunify state institutions and organize elections that December. When elections were called off amid disputes over rules and candidates, Dabaiba nonetheless stayed on, refusing to relinquish office. In February 2022, the Haftar-aligned, east-based House of Representatives appointed a rival government, led at first by Fathi Bashagha and, since 2023, by Osama Hamad.
Since then, the country has remained split between the internationally recognized Tripoli executive, which rules in much of the west, and the Haftar-backed government and parliament that administer the east and most of the south. Alongside these divided institutions, a three-member Presidential Council, headed by Mohamed al-Mnefi, formally serves as Libya’s collective head of state and supreme military authority, though its influence is lessened by the country’s political and military fragmentation.
The eastern military coalition does not recognize the Presidency Council as the top military authority; it has its own general command, headed by Field Marshal Haftar.
The status quo has its benefits: though the country remains divided, the two sides have not returned to war, preserving a measure of peace on the ground for which many Libyans are grateful. A sufficiently wide distribution of oil revenues keeps elites on both sides of the divide from rocking the boat.
A construction boom and the proliferation of events open to the public free of charge – such as concerts and international sporting contests – have also boosted support for authorities in both eastern and western Libya. But bifurcation also comes at a cost. Institutional dysfunction has worsened; foreign forces remain in the country (Russian in the east, Turkish, reportedly, in the west); and the economy has suffered, as the competing authorities bankroll themselves through a mix of licit and off-the-books arrangements. The latter have drained public finances, raising the cost of living and stunting development investment.
Over the past year, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser for Arab and African affairs, Massad Boulos, has sought to break this deadlock, reversing a decade of U.S. disengagement following the 2012 killing of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
Beyond the Trump administration’s aspiration to add to the list of the president’s supposed peace agreements, three factors may explain Washington’s renewed focus.
The first is energy: amid turmoil in global markets and reduced Gulf oil exports, the U.S. may be seeking to boost Libya’s hydrocarbon production and promote the interests of U.S. oil companies.
The second is commerce, as Washington thinks Libya could be a lucrative market for U.S. firms beyond the energy sector.
The third is geostrategy: the U.S. may wish to stop Russia from firming up a foothold in Libya by drawing the North African country under its own military umbrella.
Against this backdrop, the idea of a U.S.-backed power sharing agreement originated in discreet talks launched by Boulos.
These reportedly began in September 2025 with a clandestine meeting in Rome between Ibrahim Dabaiba, adviser and nephew of Prime Minister Dabaiba, and Saddam Haftar, Khalifa Haftar’s son and deputy commander.
The discussions apparently yielded nothing beyond a generic commitment to work toward unifying the two sides’ budgets.
Secrecy has been a key feature of Washington’s diplomacy throughout. Even as the U.S. effort progressed, neither Boulos nor any other U.S. official would publicly share the content of the developing proposal.
Libyans commonly refer to the proposed political settlement as the “Boulos plan”, reflecting his central role in the negotiations. Boulos himself describes it as a “U.S. initiative”, adding only that it seeks to unify the country’s institutions after fifteen years of division. Still, broad contours of the deal have emerged, if only in increments. According to Libyan interlocutors and foreign diplomats familiar with the negotiations, the initiative’s centrepiece is merging the two rival governments into a single executive.
Again, based on these reports, two men would emerge as principal beneficiaries: Abdelhamid Dabaiba and Saddam Haftar, leading representatives of the two families that have consolidated political power in western and eastern Libya, respectively.
Despite continuous tensions, Dabaiba and Saddam Haftar have reportedly been in regular, secret contact, notably to negotiate off-the-books revenue sharing arrangements that critics charge serve their respective parochial interests. According to these sources, the proposed U.S.-backed arrangement would leave Dabaiba in office as prime minister of the unified executive, with his nephew Ibrahim staying on as national security adviser.
Saddam Haftar, currently deputy commander-in-chief of the east-based Libyan Arab Armed Forces, would become head of the Presidential Council, replacing Mohamed al-Mnefi. The fate of the Council’s two other members remains unclear. Should such a deal be concluded – and should a member of the Haftar family for the first time occupy political office with full international recognition – at least some domestic opposition would be inevitable.
Saddam Haftar’s forces fought (and won) deadly urban wars with Islamist groups in Benghazi (between 2015 and 2018) and Derna (in 2017-2018), and then led the year-long siege of Tripoli in 2019, before being compelled to withdraw in 2020. Since then, they have been accused of being involved in the disappearance of several prominent activists and politicians as well as of controlling various smuggling routes.
Beyond this central political bargain, several important aspects of the proposed arrangement remain unresolved, according to Libyans well informed about the negotiations. One concerns the seat of the new government: whether it would be Tripoli, where Dabaiba is based, or Sirte, the central coastal city under Haftar’s control. The Haftars have not set foot in the capital in over a decade, and several powerful Tripoli-based armed groups remain deeply hostile to them due to the 2019-2020 siege.
The two sides reportedly are weighing different options. One idea would be for Sirte to be the interim seat of power. Its proponents argue that Sirte would be a more neutral location, insulating the new executive from Tripoli’s armed groups, which they accuse of routinely coercing ministers and influencing government decision-making.
They further contend that this temporary relocation would provide the authorities with greater freedom to reform the security sector before returning to Tripoli. More recently, the Haftar camp is said to have suggested that Dabaiba’s government move to Sirte while Saddam Haftar, as head of state, would be based in Tripoli.
Those favouring a bigger role for the capital, by contrast, prefer an opposite arrangement, in which each leader would remain in his present stronghold: Dabaiba in Tripoli and Haftar in Sirte.
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