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Middle East Dispatch: Libya’s ruin

2026-02-17 · 17:17 UTC ·The Economist ·7 min read

Brief

Libya is presented as a case study in post-revolutionary collapse: a country with exceptional structural advantages—large oil reserves, a long Mediterranean coastline, and a key transit position between Africa and Europe—yet one whose post-2011 rulers have, in the author’s telling, outperformed even Qaddafi in dysfunction. The article centers on Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, who unlike other heirs of fallen Middle Eastern regimes tried to re-enter politics from within Libya rather than exile, pitching elections and national reconciliation despite his ICC warrant and his role in the 2011 repression. His apparent popularity, symbolized by persistent public nostalgia for the old regime, is treated as evidence of the bankruptcy of Libya’s current order. His February 3 killing in Zintan is framed less as an isolated murder than as the logical outcome of a fragmented polity dominated by militias and rival power centers. The broader lesson, the article argues, is that nostalgia for toppled regimes can be politically potent but also lethally destabilizing.

Why it matters

The Economist’s Feb. 17, 2026 Middle East Dispatch argues that Saif al-Islam Qaddafi’s murder underscores how deeply Libya has failed since Muammar Qaddafi’s 2011 overthrow.

Key details

  • Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the former dictator’s second son, had been campaigning from inside Libya—while ignoring an International Criminal Court arrest warrant—and polls reportedly placed him ahead of rivals as a would-be national unifier.
  • He was killed on February 3rd in Zintan, south of Tripoli; security cameras reportedly showed four masked men entering his garden before the feeds went dark, and the article says responsibility remains unclear.
  • The piece portrays post-2011 Libya as a state with vast oil reserves, Mediterranean geography, and strategic position between Africa and Europe that has nonetheless been hollowed out by civil war, militia rule, oil-rent predation, trafficking networks, and repeated avoidance of elections.
  • The Economist suggests Saif al-Islam’s death benefits Libya’s rival strongmen—especially eastern commander Khalifa Haftar, who barred his burial in Sirte—and may remove a major obstacle to finally holding elections under long-standing UN Security Council resolutions.
Cleaned source text

title: Middle East Dispatch: Libya’s ruin

author: The Economist

content_type: newsletter

publication: e.economist.com

published: 2026-02-17T11:17:36-06:00

source_url: gmail://19c6c9ba396b4228

word_count: 1492

Also: Dubai’s crazy rich Chinese ‌ ‌ ‌

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February 17th 2026 For subscribers

Middle East Dispatch

The best of _The Economist_ ’s Middle East coverage

Libya’s ruin

Nick Pelham

Middle East correspondent

Scions or former henchmen of toppled regimes seem to be enjoying a small revival across the Middle East. Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s last shah, touts himself as a democratic alternative to the Islamic Republic. Muhammad Dahlan, the former security chief in Gaza, is said to be advising—if not shaping—the technocratic committee President Donald Trump proposes as a post-Hamas administration. From exile in Russia, even Rami Makhlouf, Bashar al-Assad’s cousin, plots a comeback on Syria’s coast.

None, though, show the brazenness of Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the second son of the tyrant toppled by the Arab spring in 2011. Unlike his fellow heirs, he campaigned not from abroad but from within Libya, the country that overthrew his father. Holed up in the mountains of Zintan, south of Tripoli, and ignoring an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, he directed a nationwide campaign. I would meet his aides in Tripoli’s hotel lobbies—disciplined, confident, as zealous as ever.

His smooth pitch, like Mr Pahlavi’s, was democracy: let the people choose via elections. In a fractured country, he presented himself as a unifier. The message resonated. On visits to Libya 15 years after the fall of his father, Muammar Qaddafi, I still saw newlyweds with green ribbons—the old regime’s colour—tied to their cars. Polls routinely placed the younger Mr Qaddafi ahead of rivals.

That he was ever in the running speaks to Libya’s ruin since 2011. Few countries possess such natural advantages: vast oil reserves, an enviable Mediterranean coastline and a strategic perch between Africa and Europe. Colonel Qaddafi turned what might have been Africa’s richest state into a pariah. His successors have managed worse. They fought a civil war over the spoils, promised freedom but delivered repression, and ruled like mafiosi. They siphoned off oil wealth, empowered militias and traffickers, and shrank from elections that would expose their unpopularity.

We may never learn who ordered Saif al-Islam’s killing as he sat in his garden on February 3rd—before they went dark, security cameras showed four masked men entering. Some blame rival factions in Zintan, each treating him as a bargaining chip. Others see vengeance for a brutal man who stood beside his father as protesters were gunned down in 2011. The likeliest beneficiaries of his death are Libya’s rival strongmen, who preside over its divided halves, feasting like hyenas. With Saif al-Islam gone—and no credible Qaddafi heir in the wings—they face one fewer rival. The warlord in the east, Khalifa Haftar, barred the son’s burial in Sirte, the Qaddafis’ hometown. Without a Qaddafi on the ballot, Libya’s rulers might finally assent to UN Security Council resolutions to hold elections.

For would-be pretenders elsewhere, the lesson is stark: nostalgia can mobilise. It can also kill. Please write to us with your thoughts: middleeastdispatch@economist.com.

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At any gathering of Dubai residents over the past year, one topic is bound to come up: how long will the property market keep booming? Prices soared by double digits in both 2024 and 2025. A peak may finally be in sight, though. Moody’s, a ratings agency, said last week that Dubai was headed for a “mild softening” of prices.

The slowdown will come largely from the supply side: an estimated 180,000 homes should be finished over the next three years, twice the historical average. Demand may peak as well (the number of property transactions hit an all-time high last year). None of this means that Dubai is headed for another 2008-style crash. As we wrote in September, the emirate’s property market is less speculative and more disciplined than it once was. Indeed, Moody’s believes that banks and big builders are well-placed to weather a slowdown.

Instead it may reinforce a shift toward a two-tier property market. Prime areas (such as Palm Jumeirah) and luxe developments will continue to appreciate. But a slowdown will bring some relief to middle-class professionals in the emirate who feel squeezed by everything from rents to groceries to school fees.

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