Desert Squalls - no Libyan War

On another board, we had a discussion about the migrant mess and I thought about a potentially interesting PoD a decade ago or so. OTL, Ghadaffi pretty much humiliated then French president Sarkozy during his visit to Paris, setting up his tent in the palace’s gardens, and playing him along, then doing it again with the Bulgarian nurses’ affair. Sarkozy is currently being investigated for potentially - nothing proved at this time - having received funding from Ghadaffi in his successful presidential bid of 2007, and it is widely believed that the French push towards the 2011 Libyan War was caused by a feeling of personal revenge as well as a way to eliminate loose ends for Sarkozy while he was in trouble for having sold surveillance equipment to Tunisia’s dictator at the beginning of the Arab Spring (conspiracy theorists and economic illiterates think it was because Ghadaffi wanted to get a gold-backed money and that the US felt threatened by it - which is to economy what jet fuel cannot melt steel beams is to engineering). We know how it ended for everyone.

Now, the point of divergence. During the visit to Paris, Ghadaffi decides to push for better relations with France, having seen what happened to Iraq when Saddam was without strong relations to at least one Western power. So he actually holds an informal promise and gives Sarkozy a huge political present, buying 24 Rafale (French for Squall) fighter jets. Sarkozy tried to sell them for years, unsuccessfully due to various blunders - it would be his successor, Hollande, who would sell a lot of them - and the plane was then perceived as a money hole in France. Cue a realignment of the relations, with Sarkozy scoring a very strong win through a highly visible success that brings billions at the time the Great Recession comes hard.

Now, let’s jump to 2011 and the Arab Spring. Tunisia’s street seller sets himself ablaze, shit go bad there and protesters start their stuff in Benghazi. But now, there are Libyan pilots and mechanics training on the first couple of planes produced for them in Southern France, and Sarkozy decides to make sure his guy on the other side of the Med should not be fucked hard. The first few planes are sent over to Libya, with the new pilots or maybe with some French pilots, without any weapon. But with the newest recon pods that, OTL, proved particularly successful over Libya, giving loyalist forces a much larger edge than they would have had OTL. There is some media campaign going both sides in France, some supporting the rebels, other portraying them as islamists thugs, to the point that no official intervention is decided on either side. Ghadaffi gets told to deal with this quickly and to offer some PR stuff to not look like a bloodthirsty maniac, and the rebellion implodes within a few weeks or months. Obama doesn’t want to touch an Arab war with a ten light-years pole given the ongoing mess in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Brits don’t give much of a shit either. Germany files some human rights protests.

What now? Libya doesn’t collapse to become a migrant staging grounds, but what would be the consequences for Europe, the US and possibly the Syria/ISIS stuff. And for those wondering what consequences it could ever have for the US, I have one word for you.

Benghazi.
 
You simply kick the can on the road, Gheddafi was old and his health nothing to be proud; his sons not being capable like him (if not totally incompetent)...frankly you have a couple of years were the 'good old colonel' continue to blackmail my country to stop the migrants while at the same moment taking part of the money of the people that transport the poor people in Europe, till he die and the nation collapse in a chaos similar to today.
 
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