Were going to get started here. Thank you all for joining us. I am mark moyar, the director of the project on military and diplomatic history here at csis. We formed this center last year to help inform both the policy world and also the public on how history can help us understand current Foreign Policy issues. And we would like to especially promote historians who also do work in the policy world, and that includes our speaker today. And we also would like to promote interaction between historians and policy experts, and we have one of our own csis policy experts today, alice friend, who ill introduce later in the event. Ill give you a couple other events coming up for those who may be interested. We have october 10th, were going to have carter malcasen talking about his book, illusions of victory, the anbar awakening and the rise of the islamic state. On october 18th, well have Lawrence Friedman on his book, the future of war, a history. And october 24th, we have Calder Walton talking about the history of foreign interference in elections. If youre not already on our mailing list, you can sign up for it on our website. One of the virtues of history is that it provides us with rich contextual understanding, i think if you study a country for years and years as historians do, you learn how individuals and groups and institutions interact and in a way that otherwise i dont think you would understand fully. You learn how also peoples views of their own history shapes their world view, and you find out more about how these countries are different from others. I think one of the leading problems with some of our recent interventions is that we did not pay enough attention to history before we went in. I remember with the iraq war, people were talking about how we could democratatize iraq because we had dumockerateized enindon a indonesia. People who had studies iraq and indonesia would tell you theyre quite different so we need to be careful. I think we saw similar problems when we went into libya in 2011. There wasnt a full recognition or really much of an understanding of libyan history and our speaker will tell us much more about that today. Ill introduce our speaker, federica fasanotti is a nonresident fellow in the center for 21st century security and intelligence with a Foreign Policy program at the brookings institution. Her field work and research have covered afghanistan, libya, ethiopia, somalia, and her latest book is the army and the bush italian counterinsurgency, 1860 to 1943. She has a doctorate from the university of milan and following her studies, she moved to rome where she is active with the central Historical Office of the italian army and the Historical Office of the Italian Ministry of defense. So i would like to welcome dr. Fasanotti to csis. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for being here. I see many friends, and so thank you. Okay. Today, i hope to be not too boring, but were talking about history. And how history has shaped libya in many ways. So if we anyway, if we look at libya today, we have three fundamental issues in my opinion. One is local. And it is strictly connected with the history of the country. The other one is regional. And it is given by the absence of a strong government. Always connected with the first problem, which is local. And then a third one, which is strategic. The regional mess that we have, there are other strategic problems, much broader, lets say. Broader issues. Connected to the energy, to terrorism, migrations, for us italians and of course, just strategic competition. So if we go to the first problem, the local one, we see that it is little issues, little in the sense of, of course, just to say, but we have internal divisions. We have no strong leadership, no public administration, no investments. And these are the results, not only from 2011, but these are results of centuries of the history of the country. So its not a case that today we have all these kind of problems. So if we start, i promise i will be very quick, but we have to start, i think, from the beginning of the formation of the libyan state, so during the ottoman empire. The ottoman rule in libya has been lasted long, centuries. And libya was divided. The core of the ottoman rule was tripoli. But then we have benghazi, a kind of agent, and all of the leaders of the tribal leaders who gave aliegeancies. Libya was divided, anyway. When italians came during the beginning of the 20th century, between lets say 1912, they fought against the ottomans. They won the war. But in the end, they found out that there was another enemy, libyans. And they started a terrible counterinsurgency in the country. That lasted until lets say 1931, when the hero of the insurgents was caught and hanged in a concentration camp. In those periods, in the period of the italians, libya was already divided. This time in two parts. Tripoli and the desert, and these until 1928, then it was unified for military reasons. And if someone is interested, i can talk about that after. And in 1934, it became a real part of italy. Under the leadership, but anyway, was unified. But divided to be better controlled in five provinces. Tripoli, benghazi, and so on. Military territories, just to make you understand. So it was always divided. And then during the occupation, again, that kind of occupation that was more kind of protect e protective, of course, lasted from lets say 1943 during the Second World War when italians lost the country, until 1951 when the king came and took power. During the allied protectorate, lets call it like this, also Great Britain took tripoli and of course france for obvious reasons. The king came after his exile caused by italians, went to egypt. He came back in 1944. He became king afterwards. And he decided, to give libya federal constitution. Immediately at the beginning. And this federal constitution created the federal state, also this time, divided in three big regions. Sometimes i use the italian words, sorry. And of course, the federal the federal state during the time of that was not perfect at all. And he said to manage enormous and huge and rooted conflicts inside the country. Part of the country wanted the federal state, but another part of the country was absolutely against it. And so all of these frictions, of course, did not help. The king who in the end, in 1963, decided for the abolition of the federal state, and decided to unify the country under his reign without the regions, without anything. Just all the power. But also, the power in his hands didnt work. In fact, a few years after gadhafi, a young colonel, came out and made was lets see, what they called the revolution. Bolivia was not in good shape anyway because also the gadhafi period, many problems came out. And the country was incredibly divided. Also in those decades because were talking about almost 40 years, but what did gadhafi to get the country united . Not very differently by the italians, frankly, and using the ancient roman always used in the empire. Divide and rule. And he did exactly the same with the little ethnic diversities with the tribes, putting one against the other. And when that was not enough, he used the italians. So the hate against the colonialists. In the end, the country was incredibly divided, and gadhafi took these divisions, these diversities as a tool to better manage the country. So when the revolution, the arab spring came, the country was profoundly divided already. And the point is that when the International Community helped one part of the country, the rebels, to fight gadhafi, the point is that behind gadhafi, there was another part of the country. And so it became immediately a civil war. So today, talking about always the first point, the first issue, the local issue. I just talk about history just to make you understand that libya has never been united. Libya has never been really has never known democracy because ottomans, italians, and then the king, it was not a democracy because times have been really ruthless and cruel. And then, of course, gadhafi. That was not a democracy. So when everything started in 2011, we had in front of us a country incredibly weak. Difficult to define today as a state, in my opinion. But we can discuss about that after. So today, we have many problems given to that background. And we can see the divisions in every possible way. We have political divisions, gna against the hor, and internal in tripoli, we have the followers of what was the gnc and so political divisions. Then we had ethnic divisions. So again, ethnicity is not so strong as in other countries in libya, but we have problems, for example, again, so on. Then we have tribal divisions. Just a few days ago, there were we had, libya had clashes between two tribes, men of two tribes. What we call in italy the tribe of gadhafi. So its continuously a mess. A clash against different divisions. On top of these divisions, we have external actors. And theyre doing their business. So on one side, we have i cannot say europe because its a mess. Lets say maybe italy and United States. Apparently, the International Community. That supports the gna. But on the other side of the plate, we have of the table, we have other external actors like russia, like emirates, like first of all, egypt, who are interested in doing other business. And so these presence of external actors staking one part or the other, has disrupted completely the normal process of lets say democratization of the country, spoiling everything. And here we come to the second problem, the regional problem. Which is played by, of course, external actor, and also tunisia on one side, morocco, tunisia, and algeria. On the other side, egypt. And inside the country, in the region, there is lack of everything. So the fact that we dont have a strong government, because gna is not a strong government, and part of the country does not recognize it. Its been a problem for the economy, because no investments at all in the country in every possible way. For the social fabric because people in libya do not feel to be supported by the government. And they feel to be absolutely alone. You can see this above all. And then of course a complete absence of leadership, a Political Class that can take and can lead the country. So we dont have a good, lets say, class of politicians. We dont have a good economy. And on top of that, we dont have security. At all. And this problem, this issue of security, takes us to the third issue. Big issue. Which is the strategic one. So we have the problem for, lets say, issues, internal issues. Terrorism, migrations, of course, lets say the problem of energy, which is strictly connected with the problem, lets say, geopolitical competition inside the chessboard, the north and african chessboard. So terrorism, after all the division we have seen after the top, where there are external actors, we have underground as a spring, the problem of the groups. Usually, when we talk about the salafi problem in libya, we talk about isis, not so much, i have to say, even though the last strong terrible clash was about isis. Then we have al qaeda, whatever, but they are the name. The superstar. Then there is a constellation of other actors, criminal actors. And that is another problem in libya. The conjunction between terrorism and criminal groups, normal criminal groups. Sometimes they act together. Sometimes the lines are different. But the problem is incredible because criminality is growing in the country. Because, of course, there is no security. There is no strong government that can take a big part in this problem. Of course, given the fact, given all the things that we have seen until now, libya has become not only a super safe haven for terrorism and so on, but also the door for europe, for a new kind of migration. In the past, there was another route, the atlantic one, starting from senegal, going to spain through morocco. But now, we have three big routes, and all of these routes from this isle, they all go through libya. Different parts, different cities of libya. But the point is that theyre the final target is europe. And just in the last year, we have had Something Like almost 200,000 migrants in the country, just in italy coming from just this number coming from libya. So this is another important strategic problem. And then there is the problem of energy. Italy is not a producer of energy. And so it needs to have, to import energy from the east of europe, of course. But historically, from the south. And so gas, oil, whatever, they come from libya for us, the majority. And of course, given the fact that libya from 1959 has been a producer of oil, one of the best in the world, this opens another strategic problem, which is absolutely geopolitical. Kind of geopolitical competition. So libya has become the theater for a proxy war by qatar on one side and emirates on the other. Tunisia, morocco, algeria on one side, and egypt on the other. And above all, the west and russia. Of course, because the history of russia and libya is old. Its not new. So thats another big problem, because russia is not only interested in oil when we talk about libya, but its interested in ports, for example. Benghazi, they could be perfect points in the mediterranean. The syrian part is not enough. And russia does not have a strong feet in the mediterranean. This is another point on the table. I think i made i gave you just an idea, and now im ready for questions. Well thanks for those great comments. And i should mention, too, that we a lot of what we do, as you notice, are books. We also focus on timely issues. I knew libya was a hot one, so i looked all over the place to find a person who was best suited to do this, and found dr. Fasanotti, and delighted to find you, as you heard. Shes extraordinarily knowledgeable on the subject. Before we get to questions, im going to let our discuss nlts say a few words and ill introduce you to first alice friend, a senior fellow in the International Security fellow at csis, and she focuses on African Security issues and also Civil Military relations. And shes currently a doctoral student at american universitys school of international service. From 2012 to 2014, she was the principle director for African Affairs in the office of the undersecretary of defense for policy. Focusing on north and west african counterterrorism. And she joined dod in 2009 as special assistant to the undersecretary of defense for policy and also served as a Senior Adviser to the deputy under secretary of defense for strategy plans and forces and is country director for pakistan. So alice. Thanks, mark. And thank you, dr. Fasanotti for those remarks, and also, we had an opportunity to have lunch with her earlier, and it was very interesting and i learned a lot. Im just going to give very brief remarks because im sure the audience is very eager to ask our guest questions. But in reviewing the history of libya over the past few days and hours, it made me reflect on how policymakers use history, and its in fact what mark asked me to talk about. Its safe to say in the american context, which is the only policymaking context i have knowledge in, history gets short shrift. But what treatment history does get is very uneven between agencies and between layers of the bureaucracy. So i worked at the department of defense. Which meant that i worked very closely with counterparts at the state department, especially those who worked in posts. And i found that people who worked in embassies but also people who were on the desk at the state department, very frequently had an impressive depth of knowledge of the history of their country and their region that they were in. That wasnt reflected in my agency. In my agency, the emphasis was much less on history and much more on contemporary operations, for obvious reasons. We had a different set of incentives. But i was always struck at the unevenness between agencies when we got together, the nsc in particular. But also between the layers of bureaucracy. So in the u. S. Government, you have sort of the first line of defense for any particular country or region is the action officer. And the action officer is supposed to be the subject matter expert. The action officer for libya is supposed to know libya. Is supposed to know libyas history very, very well. Not as well as dr. Fasanotti, but well. As you grow up the chain of command, you dont have subject Matter Experts anymore. You have broad expertise in how to make policy. And you have people at higher and higher levels of responsibility so that instead of just spanning libya, they span all of africa. Then they span dod where i worked, africa, the middle east, latin america, and europe and russia. And then theres the undersecretary, who has the globe and every functional issue that the department does as well. And so the, you know, brain capacity that is left over for the history of one particular country in one particular offic quite dramatically as you go up the chain of command. And these are the people by the way that are making the policy. So when you are sitting around at high levels of the National Security council, they may have all the briefing book in the world written by very knowledgeable subject Matter Experts but they only have so much time and capacity to absorb whats in there, so they do one of the thing that i want to point out to use history, which is they use it puristically, they use it as a shortcut. Policy makers are, if not by training, are generally by orientation political scientists and not historians. As somebody trained in Political Science myself i will say that we and historians often are suspicious of each other because we have a fundamentally different understanding of the way the world works. Political science thinks that social and political life has patterns and is repetitious and you will see everything over and over again. Historians think everything is complex and contingent, because it is. But political scientists are trying to see the similarities across Human Experience because those are there, too, so they tend to use hurristics, they tend to say well ive seen this before in small yo, so it must be the same in libya. I made the error today, i said season that a little bit like switzerland . And everybody at the table is said no. We love analogy. It is a shortcut. We love to do it at all, at the senior most levels they love analogy through their own experience. Somebody who went through mogudishu is going to see it again. Somebody who has been an ambassador in one country naturally as a human being is going to want to apply that expertise elsewhere. That is one of the ways we use history. The other way we use it at the junior levels is the opposite problem, its too much expertise, too much depth, too much detail. And generally, action officers were very poor at translating that up in part because they are talking to a audience that wants a heuristic, that want a really simple causal relationship. If i push this button. If i give arms to this particular militia in libya, that will solve the problem, right . Maybe if we backed off our that will cause unification amongst the people of libya. They are always searching for that answer. For a whole host of reasons but in part because these use these hurristics. And its very, very hard to take these complex it is and translate it to prohibitive policies and say well this is what the United States should do in this context today. So instead those people tend to be nay sayers. They tend to be the ones that are saying dont do that, take no action. Thats a stupid idea. So they are not very popular because the United States is an optimistic country and we ten to have a bias for action, for Decisive Action. We want to do something. And so for the experts in the room on history, who are usually first of all very junior, so they are already they already have challenges in being heard but are also saying well think back to the ottoman empire, many eyes around the room start to glaze over. So theres a real challenge i will confess. I worked the africa account and i did a lot of work on libya and i didnt really learn about libyas history until i left because i did not have the time. I was one of the people who had to know what was going on in all 53 areas of our operations. Now that i have read the history of libya in much more depth, can see places where of course this is what would happen if we took that action. But i didnt know how to tell my action officers how to translate that for me and how to tell me what should be my talking point when im at the nsc next week . And what is the talking point that isnt just thats aed about idea, not going to go well. It has to be heres what we should do, heres what money we should put where, what authority we should use f we are going to train the Libya Special forces, this is how we need to get it done. Thats very, very hard for an action officer to translate. The last thing i will say is that the third way that policy makers treat history is as something in the fact which is to say it exercises no force on things today. Which is of course not true. I think especially in the american context we feel sort of not as burdened even though we are, we are as burdened by our past as any other country in the world but we dont seem to feel it culturally. And in other places where we operate or where we are, where we engage, it is felt more keenly. Even if it isnt, of course its still operating on the present. Its had incredible political cultural Economic Impacts on where we are today. So to operate without understanding it is generally folly as Barbara Tuchman would have said, but is also again very, very hard for policy makers to do in a pars moanious n a simple way. I think ill leave it at that and let the audience have their opportunities. Great. Well open the floor to questions. State your name and affiliations. In the back, sir . Good afternoon. My name is marw a n. I work with the National Democratic institute here in washington, d. C. And so my question is, as dr. Fasanotti said, the case in libya is its essentially a proxy war with qatar versus the uae with the west versus russia. You then moved on to say that the United States tries to have a Decisive Action. So my question is, how are you able to create this Decisive Action that is beneficial to the libyans but at the same time countering russian influence in the region . So there is always this question of you know is the policy pro american or antirussian or is it pro libyan. Win all of these times all the actors that are involved, how are you ever able to come up with anything sustainable, i guess. Thank you. Thank you. Well, its a very good question but very difficult to give you an answer for sure in the sense that the situation right now is incredibly complex. Something has changed in the very few last few weeks. A new actor has come out, salaami. He gave a plan. Very understandable, a very logic. But the point is that my fear, as i was telling before, is that are the International Community is the International Community really focused on solving the problem in libya . So you are asking me what the United States can do about russia and the proxy war of qatar and emirates and so on. Well, i think that United States in this case has a big can have a big impact in terms of diploma diplomacy. So i dont think that the solution for the United States thats what i think we can discuss on this. But its the boots on the ground, and the military solution to keep everybody, you know, calm. I think that here is the moment that the real protagonists are libyans, not russia. There was you cannot imagine looking at the situation, the situation that is evolving from 20 2011, how disruptive has been the presence of the external actors. And in a country that is historically weak as libya because libya, as i was telling, has no history of democracy, of autogoverning. It as always been like a, you know, a hybrid in many respects, political hybrid. So even though we have 5 million inhas been tapbitants in the co country as large as alaska, which is incredible, still we dont have a solution. And we dont have a solution because i think libyans have been too much pushed by one side towards one side or the other. So the responsible of the external actors here is huge, immense. And i think that the solution for the United States in this very moment, with salaami, with the new plan, with some points coming in the future, it is a diplomatic solution. So trying to help in this way, but help first of all libyans. Debra jones, former u. S. Ambassador to libya. Quick question. Historically as you look at it and we talk about different models of governing sorry sorry. Debra jones former u. S. Ambassador to libya. When we look at models of governance in libya, and lets just talk about libya within, with all of the kind of kinds of the political i dont want to call it illiteracy but the lack of experience politically that it has had. Yeah. And you have now looked at it over a series historically over a series of different influences and invaders, governors, whatever, people who have been in charge. So what, from a historians perspective has been the period of most efficiency, most efficient governance . Is and what is the model that came out of it . Because right now obviously there is a competition between what we tried to do as an International Commune was build consensus, in a consensus society. Or now people who are looking at a more authoritarian replacement that they hope will be more directive. Was it a combination . Was it a distribution of wealth . What did you see historically . Im asking historically what worked best for libya from a historians perspective . Well, id say probably the best one, probably, but i have to discuss with my friend, kareem mizran. Probably the kingdom of edris. Because it was a man from an incredibly important family from syrian he represented hope. And in the end, he followed his people in many respects, and he did many things. But another period of and this is really im telling you something many people will not agree with me. But the period after the reconquest of libya made by italians the period from lets say 1934 to the moment in which, lets see the Italian Government handed 1944, and another period after when italians were in libya, i think they did a lot for the country. But im not talking about the counterinsurgency operations, or the war, the bloodshed and whatever after. And lets say a peaceful libya. But if i if i have to choose, probably id say the kingdom of edris, probably. Because all the rest i mean, i dont want to talk here about the ottoman rule, it is too with bashaad, 169 century it is a little bit too much. But looking at the contemporary modern libya i would probably the period after, the light occupation, protectate, it was nothing. It was just a period of transition. And the gadhafi period, well ive been very ruthless against that period because he was a libyan and he did not invest in anything, above all, he did not invest in childhood education which would have changed the face of libya nowadays. And you are a libyan. How can you do this in modern times . So we dont have so many choice, ambassador. Just, you know, i can in telling you that the kingdom of edris was not perfect at all. Full of frictions, as i said, and clashes, and political problems. But in the end, it was a period of light. Libya was one of the five probably poorist countries in the world, and in 1959 it became a rich country because of the oil. So it was a period of, you know, positive period for some respects. And given the history of libya in general, id say that decade. Thanks. By the way, for those who are watching us on the webcast, we are taking questions on our twitter account if you would like to question remotely its csispmdh. Sir in the front row. Bill laurance, George Washington university. I wanted to ask about libyan tribes. Those of the Political Science persuasion and some of those of the history persuasion and social logical persuasions and an tlop logical and others often imagine that the tribes are a big part of the solution in libya. And i would posit that first of a all they are not always atovistic, the tribe was a group of migrants from different areas that gadhafi pushed people out of their homes and stuck them there, and next thing you know we have a tribal chief of a tribe that never existed. The second opponent is failure of various tribal strategies, like gadhafi 11, completely failed. None of the militias are named after tribes and yt we hear so much about how tries are a big part of the solution. My question for you, given our topic today is one last point. When libyans negotiate they often make references to tribal pacts, right, and tribal history, and yet its often imagined history. Right. Uhhuh. So given all these tribal framings and imaginations and imagined history, you know, what are the lessons of libyan tribal history for contemporary politics . Well, its a very difficult question. I think that you can Read Everything on tribes in libya as you said. That is a part of scholars, i read many records and book and things in the last few couple of years stating that tribes are really. I think on the other side, tribes are nothing, tribes do not exist anymore. I can tell you historically they exhibited, and shutly. They were really the structure of the country. For example, when italians came in 1912, they had to check czech relate themselves only with elders and notables and leaders of the tribes. Only with them. They were the point of, you know, the core of every problem for the italians. And this until the end of the occupation in 1943. So decades. Inside a history. Yea theres a history. Yeah, decades. Now, do the tribes exist . I think that we should think like im italian. I should think like for a mafia problem. Because mafia is, the social fabric. Tribes have nothing to see with mafia. So im jumping to italy. When i am listening to people telling, you know, but mafia does not exist anymore. You know, the associations connected to mafia, mafia kim youra, corono looet, all the behalf yas in italy that made by the way part of the history of italy when they say they do not exist anymore, no, it is not true. Because they changed their face. And in many respects now we are changed. We are different from one century ago. We live with the cell, the mobiles, we live with technology. So everything is different. Also in italy mafia, but the mafia still is there. And the concept of family, profound and rooted in the italian society, it has changed, yes. But its always there so i see the idea of the tribing in a very similar way. So tribes have changed their face. They are not always not anymore the same of one century ago. But still, the connection for libyans, i think, i guess you can correct me, but the meaning of the tribe, the consistent of that social body is still important, is still important. So i think that, yes, we cannot do we cannot build a new state just only thinking at the tribes because the ancient tribe does not exist anymore. But we can they can help in some way, creating the connection and yes, i think that we can use it. In the back . Hello. Thanks for your time. My name is david ballive with the u. S. Department of defense. With the security difficulties in libya right now and the instability, those who are high level bureaucrats or consultants, advisors, many people can even go into the country now. So what would your advice be to those particularly with nato and other Multilateral Solutions who are seeking to help stabilize the country to make a difference who arent physically able to go to the country . If you were to advise somebody in that position what would you say to them . What are some of the steps they could take . Thank you. Well, i should have a crystal ball, frankly, to answer you in the right way. But because im just a historian, of course, it is very difficult to give you a right answer. What i think is that first of all the core of the problem is in trying to convince libyans that its time for them to become a country a nation, finally, by themselves. But giving them space. Because in the last six years i havent seen this. And i have seen all the nato, and you know nato whatever acting from the top, never from the bottom. So libya what does libya need right now . Economy. Strong social fabric. Security. I think that, yes, nato and all these organizations have to act in trying to form a new possibility of government. But in the end, what is really important is what libyans need. And so i would start also from the bottom n a double way, you know, trying to organize a new form of government. What is doi ining sam ammi, at moment, referendum, constitution, elections, so on. But also looking a the needs of the country because the country is on its foot. And so and above all, i i will advise all the actors here playing not to put any boots on the ground, but to stay behind and to help libyans something good for themselves, not for the other. So what i would say is, okay, maybe the United States and i have said this should help europe because United States is far away, should help europe in helping libyans. But just supporting them from behind. Not we are not the actors in this game. But libyans, i guess. Can i add a thought to that . Its not as mature as i would like it to be, but if we cant get into the country, then i think coming up with some sort of comprehensive strategy for minimizing the proxy warfare dynamic thats going on i think would be the most helpful thing for the United States to do. I dont know what the prospect of the United States taking leadership in that area is, but in the blue sky scenario i think that would be the most pepful thing we could do to give the libyans the space they mite need. Right now per their history they are not organically determining what sort of modes of government they want. They are getting all sorts of Different Solutions imposed on them. And the only actors on the ground thats doing any sort of organic work is militias. I think if we cant, cant or wont have a presence on the ground that is meaningful enough to have a decisive effect, then i think what we can do is engage all of the various outside actors to try and sort of minimize what effects they are having that arent constructive. Yeah. Absolutely. Uhhuh, agreed. Federica, i wanted to ask you something that came up earlier when we were talking to some government officials, because i think this is particularly useful to what we are doing. Going back to 2011, had policy makers been well versed in libyan history, how might things have been different . Could it have actually made a difference in what has happened since . Well, yes. I think that if history and i think that really there was in those months a lack of knowledge of the country. When i saw certain actions before october 2011, i said oh, my god, oh, my god. For example, arming arming the rebels. One of the most important things to do in counterinsurgency operation is disarming the populous. So how can you think you are helping rebels and the population of libya giving them weapons . Now in libya, i dont know the numbers, but i told one hour ago Something Like 20 million weapons for 6 million 5 or 6 million. 6 millions because i always say 5 millions because i think many of them are spread into asia, egypt, whatever, italy as well at this point. So i think many mistakes could have been avoided just knowing the internal dynamic of the country, the historical internal dynamics. And so in my opinion, the western intervention which is not only a western intervention, lets say the International Intervention in 2011 has been wrong just because of this. Sir in the front . Thank you. From embassy of egypt. And actually i have a question literally about the internal identifyism of libya. I have been living in trip lee, i have attended the time of revolution and one year after this. From my point of view i have seen some something new created internally in libya about the identity and the importance of tribes. I think there is new identity in libya that was formed during the 2011 revolution. Its the identity of the city itself. Whenever city faces the forces of gadhafi alone, like others, this created a new important identity in libya, the identity where do you come from in libya . Tribes are still existent but one example, warfella. There are over 1 million. They are living across the area. Part of it is internal libyan cosmopolitan, from many tribes. So the structure of tribes is important but at the same time they didnt have the ability to control everything like now in libya until before the revolution. I still remember february 11th, it was friday, 2011, gadhafi had a meeting for tribes. He invited the head of tribes and asked them please dont let the ees to go out in demonstrations. Its regime we are going to pay them, we are going to give them cars. We are going to solve many internal problems in libya. And they promised to him actually to do this. But what happened after this six days is he didnt have the ability to control the situations in the eastern part of libya. Not only this, when the demonstrations out in trip lolin september 20 and 21st, all of them asking the revenge of the plot of the people that was killed in benghazi on february 17th. And it was very clear. I heard many stories from men, they didnt listen to any advice from the head of the tribes in 2011. And they not only this. Some of them were asking chiefs of the tribe to leave the tribe, you are betraying the plot of our process in the eastern part. After revolution, completely different identity. When you talk to any libyans i say he is going to mention where they come from in definition of the city. Because that has meaning. If you are from one area, that means a lot. You are armed, powerful yeah. Are a symbol of resistance against gadhafi. If you are from another area that means you are still supporting the old regime. Upper, not lower, in that area. Yeah. You are right. Still the problems between the tribes, this is new identity created during the revolution. Sure. And this actually i think is the most powerful like now still egypt will invite people from miss rata and the delegation has the identity of miss rattians, i think there is kplargs a little bit about the direct neighborhood countries to libya. Egypt, asia, nigeria, italy. When we are actually dealing directly with one side of the conflict, and primary in libya, we have a necessity for this, security necessity. Thats it. We need to we have more than 1,200 kilometers of in libya. We need to secure them. We need to talk fairest to those people handling the plets with the people of the west. The people in italy, they are doing government of italy, government of tunisia, government of algeria, so it is not sort of to be biased to one side against another side, but we we had Security Assistance in the beginning, but after this we started to talk with all sides. Maybe we understand point of view of one side more than the others. We have reservations. But at the same time i dont understand very far countries from libya, they dont have they dont share any borders with them, to intervene. And this actually, what you called spoiling. Yes, yes, absolutely. I think it has been i think it has been the real problem of libya, on top of course of the problem of the will be of identity. Libya was weak at the beginning of the revolution. Yes, i think they were right. I agree with you. I cannot say anything against your thought. Tribes they exist, the idea exist. I think they can be used as an important tool of passif ayecpa ayon. The external actors have to be motivated in some way to stop. To stop. Because they have really spoiled the entire process of passification, giving strength to the actors or other for example. We have hit our time limit. I want to thank all of you for coming today and thank dr. Fasanotti and alice friend for joining us. If you could give them a round of applause. Thank you. [ applause ] attorney general Jeff Sessions spent the morning answering questions from the Senate Judiciary committee about various issues. He was asked about President Trump firing fbi director james comey last may. Heres the topem