 Joining me from Paris is Jaleel Hoshawi from the UK's Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Services. Thank you for joining me today, Jaleel. Thank you for having me, Andrew. Could you kind of give us an overview of where you think Libya sits today with regard to its instability and the issues that we see in the divisions around the country and tell us how you think foreign interventions are playing into that? Yeah, this is a strange moment because I think the first thing I should acknowledge is there's no hot war, there's no conflict per se, there's no large-scale violence. People are not dying every day like they used to during, for instance, the last bout of the internationalized civil war that happened between April 2019 and June 2020. It's been more than 27 or 28 months now that hasn't been, except a few exceptions. There has been a few very violent days here and there, but there's no war per se. There is, of course, a situation where Libya is a textbook case of fragility and lack of stability. The country is very much divided. There's huge amounts of political and governance dysfunction to rival prime ministers, legal conflict happening, big disagreements, and, of course, a very divided country with not only the east and west divided that everybody kind of is aware of, but you have now a more and more vivid division within the northwestern part of Libya, the part that is supposed to be entirely and monolithically in favor of Turkey. Turkey is, of course, militarily present in the northwestern of Libya, but there are some factions that are considered Turkey-friendly and others that basically harbor a very anti-Turkey sentiment. So the northwestern part of Libya, the one that fought as just one piece against the rebel commander based in the east by the name of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the northwestern part of Libya, we remember it as being relatively cohesive in 2019-2020. Now, the big development over the last several months is that it has become very, very divided. So you have the division within northwestern Libya, then you have the east and west division and, of course, a lack of stability across the entire territory, even though the two styles of governance, the one centered on Benghazi and Tobruk, is very different from the one centered on Misrata and Tripoli. So big division, actors that haven't abandoned the idea of waging war, that could be a relapse into civil war almost any week now, but I must acknowledge that there has been a form of very approximate, very rough piece over the last two years or so, and corruption has been growing, dysfunction has been growing, fragmentation has been deepening with no real solution or any prospect for elections within the foreseeable future. To go back to the foreign states, the foreign states are still present. I mentioned Turkey, but you have still, as I speak to you, roughly 2,000 Russian personnel present on Libyan soil, keeping a low profile, not trying to draw attention, except a few incidents which we can discuss if you wish. And then you have a very active, very aggressive Egypt, not so much militarily, but in terms of interfering with the diplomacy, interfering with the internal politics of Libya. You have a France that is very close to Egypt, that used to be close to the UAE, but today France tends to work hand in hand with Egypt that happens to be on the same side of Russia, and yes, we have a NATO member that happens to be on the same side of Russia in Libya. And then one other thing that I should mention is the fact that the UAE, that used to be the most consequential interferer in Libya, particularly during the years 2014, all the way to 2020, today is much more pragmatic, careful, prudent, and not so much on the side of Eastern Libya. There's a form of sympathy with the government in Tripoli, oddly enough, between the UAE and the current situation. So things are kind of moving. You have constants that feel familiar, but you have also differences. And all those states are not pursuing very aggressive policies, but all of this could get revived within a couple of weeks if the Libyans themselves resume more. Could you actually, as you offered, give me a little bit more about the Russian presence in Libya? Where are they and what does their presence mean? Well, it's a little bit of a contradictory stance because by now there's a mountain of evidence that the Russians do not obey their main host. The main host, of course, is Field Marshal Haftar and his sons. Those are the actors that brought Russia in several years ago. Now Russia basically feels home. It's happy to have this clandestine presence, especially when the press doesn't cover it. And the relationship is contradictory because on the one hand, there's huge pressure on the part of this mercenary mission, if you will, that demands to be paid. There's huge pressure on Marshal Haftar to pay for the bills. That was a moment when the UAE was happy to pay at least part of this bill, particularly in the years 2019-2020. But now there are a few clues and indications that there's a kind of a tab accumulating on the side of Haftar vis-à-vis the Russian friends that he thinks that he has. So they don't obey. They basically do whatever they want. There's no relationship of client provider. But they still provide vital protection for Haftar and his entire structure, which exists in the east, also in the southwest. And if you were to draw a map, you would see the Russian mission presence in cities like CERT, which is smack in the middle in terms of the actual coast of Libya. They're present in Jufra. They're present in the military camp of Rakhashshati, which is in the Fizan. And then you have more and more talk of additional points of presence in Russia. So basically, it amounts to a line of defense that if this line of defense were to disappear, then the vulnerability of Field Marshal Haftar's armed coalition would increase dramatically because Turkey and its Libyan friends are still present, of course, in northwestern Libya. So they would be all of a sudden much more likely to conduct a military campaign to grab, let's say, the strategic oil facilities of the coast, for instance. So Russia is vital to Haftar. But Haftar, of course, is not vital at all to Russia. So you have this various symmetrical, very dysfunctional relationship that exists. And the dependencies is definitely in one direction, the one that I highlighted. What about Turkey's role with the government of national unity? I've seen recent news lately about an MOU signed. Could you explain more about this relationship and more about what it means today? Yeah, I mean, something that was very clear even before the 2019 war, the April 4th war, as the Libyans call it, even before that, there were clear indications that Turkey wanted to utilize its relationship with Tripoli and Misrata for very selfish reasons and very material reasons. In one aspect, the other aspect, you know, they have to do with nationalism and assertiveness and expansionism. There's another very, very important driver or motivation. It's just this idea of recovering the $20 billion piece of business that Turkey saw suspended in February 2011, when the dear prisings began against Gaddafi, Turkey of Erdogan, the same leader as we have now. In those years, 2008, maybe as early as 2005 until 2011, there was a love affair between Muammar Gaddafi and the Turkey of Erdogan. And that, very concretely speaking, gave rise to whole series of contracts signed between the two. Of course, Libya was making a lot of money at the time because hydrocarbon prices were high and it was using a big portion of its money to order constructions of infrastructure, you know, entertaining potentially energy contracts and building airports and so on and so forth. And a lot of those contracts basically became suspended in February 2011. And when Turkey came back in force in 2019, it was with the explicit goal of really pressuring this supposed friend in Tripoli to revive all of that business. And here we are in October 2022, and the pro-Turkey Prime Minister currently in place in Tripoli hasn't really delivered much. So what we saw earlier this month was basically Turkey pounding on the table and say, wake up, you know, we need to get paid. We're not here because we are altruistic. We're not in the face of the reason. We need our money. And we're talking about billions and billions. So of course, that comes with the maritime dimension that is very important, especially knowing that Erdogan has to face those historic elections in June 2023. So there's also a need to please the nationalistic currents within Turkey itself. But the money aspect is something that I cannot overemphasize. The Turks have every intention of not just being happy with the few billion dollars that they've received over the last couple of years. They want more. They want like, you know, recover something at least, you know, 15 billion dollars over the next few years. And that's what you saw in the form of that MOU. What about the Berlin process and the more sort of internationally supported process for peace? Is that completely stalled? Is there any hope for it to continue in the future? It is stalled. But I'm still hopeful. And actually, that's that has to do with the United States. Because, you know, you heard me speak, you know, I never mentioned the United States. And that it's not because the United States cannot make a difference, it's because over the last several years, it has kind of, you know, we are all heard of the moment when the White House gave a green light to the UAE back to offensive in April 2019. We heard of the moment when Turkey was able to interfere in a massive way exactly two years ago. This wouldn't have been possible without a modicum of coordination approval from Washington. So, but now I think we are at the verge of a moment when maybe potentially Washington could actually start making a difference directly, you know, this, it could, we could see it play more of a leadership role. And I think it would make sense in terms of the fragility theme of your series. So one thing we could see, for example, would be a salvo of sanctions against a bunch of Libyan spoilers. So that could, if it's carefully calibrated, if it's designed decently, it could scare this ruling elite that kind of is enjoying this moment of unaccountability for the last two years, especially during in peace circumstances, it's easy to kind of forget that there will ever be a punishment for all the money you stole, and you can just kind of enjoy the moment. All of this could actually be disrupted in a very constructive way if the US were to play a more certain role. And it doesn't take much. So if such a scare could be instilled in the ruling elite that is largely responsible for preventing elections last year, what we could see is an opening towards maybe a more, you know, a more realistic attempt at elections, one that actually reflects all the lessons learned last year. But you need to scare the Libyans and only the United States could do that. So if you do this, you would scare the Libyans, but you would also send the signal to the foreign interference behind them, because every meaningful elite in Libya has, of course, friends in high places outside, you know, in foreign capitals. So it would be a good way to say, look, this cannot go on forever. And we don't like corruption. We don't like what you're doing. We're not going to let you rule Libya forever without a mandate, without legitimacy, without structures, without a legal framework. Why don't we just cool off a little bit? So this is the kind of hope that I have that I'm currently harboring. Well, thank you so much for that. I mean, we see this constant pivot from cynicism to hope and cynicism to hope in Libya, and it's good to end on a hopeful note. I too hope that Libya can find more stability and the Libyan people can transition finally out of this period of cycles of war and insecurity. But thank you for your insights. They've been really, really helpful and I appreciate it. Thank you for coming. Thank you for being here.