Decision Workshops
The UN + Western powers
The West is causing no dilemmas to the NTC. It does however cause problems with the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood. They would like it to bomb Bani Walid, (which was not being bombed as the NTC wanted to avoid bloodshed, close to the end of the war and also because it was the home town of Jabril).
There was also a large current news story about the fact that Abdul Hakim Belhadj had been extradited from Singapore to London and then sent back to Libya and tortured by Gaddafi. The Muslim Brotherhood wanted the British to apologise for this (which they were reluctant to do as this would imply legal guilt).
The West was also keen on supporting Mahmoud Jabril, because of his American background, and percieved sympathy to the west. There was a lot of bad feeling about this as the Brotherhood and the Salafists were suspicious of him and wanted him to resign.
Libya - the end game: politics
By drawing up on options table, and using it to look at the subesquent dilemmas we can see the areas of conflict that the parties needed to deal with. Unlike the previous workshop where the removal of Gaddafi was paramount, in this workshop there was a large number of interlinked problems, resulting in many dilemmas to be considered. It was not known where the emphasis or trade-offs would be would be.
To understand the meaning of the tables, click on the link below:
The National Transitional Council
The important (dilemma causing) decisions here are linked to:
1) The unpopularity of Jabril with the Salafists and the Brotherhood. They are asking him to go and he is not (hence their Persuasion dilemmas). Not only are they not going, but they are handing out offices to the members of their own privileged tribes, the Warfella and Tahouni, again creating a Persuasion dilemma for the Salafist and the Brotherhood.
2) The NTC have promised not to stand at the next election, but the Salafists and the Brotherhood just do not believe that they will not. They suspect that former NTC members may be asked to take part in the official future government. There is a trust dilemma over that.
In addition to these there are cards related to the kind of government that the NTC will set up in its new constitutition. These are detailed below:
These cards illustrate the dilemma about how religious a state the Libyans want. It is expressed in a four step range from Sharia Law (using the word in the constitution) through to Secular state (using that word in the constitution). At the time of the workshop the Salafists and the brotherhood were pushing for Sharia Law, which the NTC was supportive of, but the West was reluctant, thinking that this would lead to radicalised Islamic state supportive of terrorism.
To help further define what was meant by the different types of state above, some other example decisions were also considered.
The decision not to recognise Isreal casued a hidden dilemma with the West and the NTC.
The Misratah Salafists
These are the cards owned by this group, and the associated dilemmas:
There were several trust dilemmas associated with this group in partucular :
1) Two around maintaining the discipline of the soldiers (not taking revenge on Gaddafit's supporters and not fighting a terror campaign against the NTC).
2) Two around the military capability of the forces (doubts about their ability to capture Sirte and Bani Walid despite promises to).
3) The promise that the forces would not launch a coup.
There was also a Persuasion dilemmma around the units not disbanding, despite the requests to do so from the NTC.
The Muslim Brotherhood
These cards illustrate the decisions owned by the Muslim Brotherhood:
Here the problem is that the Muslim Brotherhood is attempting to be more conciliatory towards the West, but has not overcome its trust dilemmas. Dispite what is being said, the West and the NTC just do not trust the Brotherhood not to launch terror attacks or coups.
There is also the Persuasion dilemma around disbanding the militias.
How the option tables were used for role playing
Each of the parties has to find ways of eliminating its dilemmas, that is removing the "Pursuasion" "Hidden", "Trust" and "Co-Op" boxes, by changing the option tables.
They can do this by any strategy they concieve, and their actions should be geared towards this end, Progress could be measured by the changes to the card tables. See the link below
