THE US WANTS TERRORISTS TO STAY IN LIBA. CAN RUSSIA DEFEAT THEM?

Vince Dhimos answered a question at Quora.
 
https://www.quora.com/Russia-entered-Syria-and-situations-gets-better-now-if-Russia-entering-Libya-Why-is-the-US-military-taking-it-as-a-threat-for-Europe/answer/Vince-Dhimos
 
RUSSIA ENTERED SYRIA AND THE SITUATION IS GETTING BETTER NOW. IF RUSSIA IS ENTERING LIBYA, WHY IS THE US MILITARY TAKING IT AS A THREAT TO EUROPE?
 
The first part of your question, which is a statement and not a question, is true. The situation will be better with Russian involvement because Russia, along with Egypt, UAE, France and — surprisingly — Saudi Arabia, supports Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar against the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is strangely tolerant of terrorists and has even allowed Turkey to import ISIS and Al-Qaeda militias from Syria to fight Haftar. This is not speculation. The Libyan GNA admitted this to WaPo (https://www.quora.com/Will-the-Libyan-GNA-be-able-to-capture-Sirte-and-the-rest-of-the-Tripolitania-region/answer/Vince-Dhimos). The situation is critical, with Haftar having ceded ground to Turkey, the imported terrorists and the GNA. If the bad guys win in Libya, that will be a huge victory for Islamist terror in this large oil-rich country.
 
The US allegation is a piece of propaganda aimed at Europe, which the US would like to scare into establishing a no-fly zone there. The US has concocted the story that this war could cause more waves of immigration to Europe, which is technically correct but after all, letting terrorists overrun Libya is not an option under any circumstance. Of course, the US’s position is not surprising. The raison d'être of NATO is the fable that Russia is the enemy against which Europe and the “free world” must be defended, as explained here: https://www.quora.com/Why-hasn-t-NATO-evaluated-its-peacekeeping-experience-to-identify-and-implement-best-practices-for-transitioning-failed-states-into-functional-democracy/answer/Vince-Dhimos. This is why the US can’t admit that Russian involvement in any conflict could possibly be beneficial. And yet, the last pertinent poll https://wamda-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/resource-url/665bf7c4c81c1dd.pdf taken among the Middle Eastern youth shows that this demographic overwhelmingly distrusts the US and trusts Russia most out of all non-Arab countries. This creates an untenable position for the US but yet, Washington makes no effort to change the situation by adopting a more peaceable and reasonable position, just keeps spinning and lying via its press and political class to keep up the tension. Significantly, the Syrians were left out of this poll. If we added them, the anti-US pro-Russia percentage would be significantly higher.

Worse, the US not only uses Russia as a scapegoat to beef up its military spending and war rhetoric, but in fact it was the US-led West that created ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the first place, as explained here: https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-sources-for-American-involvement-in-the-Middle-East-since-9-11-It-s-for-a-paper/answer/Vince-Dhimos. And of course, the terrorists in Syria just kept gaining ground until the Russians joined the fight in September 2015.

With all of these facts militating against US power, it is clear that Washington has been standing on shaky ground, and now with COVID threatening the dominance of the US dollar, we can only imagine that a sea change is coming that will sweep away much of the overwhelming financial power that the US had been weaponising to starve millions of hapless civilians with economic sanctions, and will tip the scales against war, sanctions and world opinion against China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and all the nations gullible Westerners thought it was right and proper to hate and fear.

Note, however, that the Russian position in Libya is even more tenuous than in Syria because the main opponent there is Turkey, which is a sometimes-partner of Russia with which Russia has teamed up to perform certain tasks such as keeping highways open for travel in northern Syria and joining Iran and Russia in Astana to forge agreements regarding the Syrian settlement.

My suspicion is that Russian partner Egypt will possibly join the fight in Libya to oppose the Turks and the GNA, and I believe the Russians are counting heavily on Egypt to turn the tide of that war. Some reasons for this suspicion:

—It was current president Al-Sisi who staged a military coup that in 2013 ousted President Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who was friendly to terrorists and allowed persecution of the Coptic Christians. It was clear then that Sisi was not going to tolerate Islamist militias. He has already warned the Libyan GNA that he will not tolerate terrorists at Egypt’s border. This suggests that when the time is right, Egypt will fight the Libyan jihadists.

—Relations between Sisi and Putin are very close. I read at an Arabic language site a while back about a meeting in Cairo between Putin, Sisi and a few close confidants of Sisi. At that meeting, Putin mentioned that he had just visited with Bashar al-Assad in Damascus and promised Sisi to share details of that meeting with him later. This suggests that Sisi is in full agreement with the Russian involvement in Syria and friendly toward Assad.

—Russia is in the process of building a Russian industrial zone along the Suez canal and has signed an agreement with Egypt to build the first nuclear power plant in that country at El Dabaa. Every year, trade increases between the two countries.

—Most significantly of all, Egypt recently ordered 20 Su-35s from Russia. This stealth fighter has superior performance characteristics to the much-ballyhooed and overpriced US F-35, which flies considerably slower, has a shorter operational range and relies on its afterburner to reach top speed, making the plane visible to radar at that point. The Su-35 does not need an afterburner to reach its top speed and can retain low detectability at all speeds.

These Su-35s would give Egypt the edge over any plane that the Libyan GNA could field against it.

Meanwhile, Russia reportedly sent a batch of MiG-29s to Libya, and then sent another batch to Syria supposedly to be deployed in the fight against terrorists there, but the US military suspects these will be dispatched to Libya to support Haftar’s forces. Their suspicion is probably correct, although Russia has denied this but that is normal considering that the US is itching to slap sanctions on Russia for its cooperation with Haftar. Since the first batch went, Haftar has scored a few minor victories over the Turkish-GNA-terrorist forces.

The fact that the two well-heeled Gulf States Saudi and UAE are on the same side as Russia in the Libyan conflict stokes hopes that the terror-supporting side will not prevail, and it also reflects a sea change that happened a while back. Saudi’s stance may be explained by the rift between Turkey and Saudi when Turkey accused MBS of ordering the grisly murder of Jamal Kashoggi in 2018. The Saudis and Egypt would also share a common disdain for the Muslim Brotherhood. Kashoggi advocated for that group in his WaPo columns, infuriating Saudi. Sisi had ousted Morsi for his support of the group. Meanwhile, with its anti-Russian stance in the conflict, the US is odd man out again, leaning more toward the terror-friendly GNA but without the support of Saudi Arabia that it could once have counted on. After the revelation of the Kashoggi killing, the US Congress condemned MBS for his alleged role in it and at that point, Saudi began to rebel against US control.
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And another US ally slips out of Washington’s grasp.