Libyan Foreign Policy under Gaddafi: From Confrontation to Voluntary Partnership with the West

Abbasi, Majid

doi:10.22054/qpss.2020.52744.2567

Libyan Foreign Policy under Gaddafi: From Confrontation to Voluntary Partnership with the West

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Majid Abbasi

Associate Professor, International Relations, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22054/qpss.2020.52744.2567

Abstract

The political upheaval known as the Islamic Awakening, which has gripped the Arab Middle East since 2011, in one case led to the overthrow of the ruling regime in Libya through Western military intervention. The military intervention came as Gaddafi's foreign policy shifted from an anti-Western orientation to voluntary engagement with the West, and relations seemingly normalized. But despite these changes, the onset of the internal Libyan crisis led to a practical and immediate response by the Western coalition aimed at overthrowing Gaddafi. This study, while theoretically studying Libyan foreign policy in the framework of James Rosena's theory and using a descriptive-explanatory method, seeks to answer the main question of why Gaddafi pursued an interactive and participatory foreign policy with the West in the last decade of his rule. But after the beginning of the popular uprising, the Western countries in the form of NATO began to intervene militarily in this country? The main hypothesis is that despite pursuing a policy of interaction with the West; Lack of trust between the parties and the lack of social, economic and political reforms and the continuation of internal discontent led the Western countries to support the fall of Gaddafi as the crisis in Libya began.

Keywords

Domestic Insurgency

Ideology

Foreign Policy

Voluntary Participation

Military Intervention

Counterinsurgency

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