U.S. diplomacy has been making moves in Libya these days. Washington’s latest push in the troubled North African nation sits inside a crowded field of mediation efforts, rising local resistance to a specific power-sharing formula, and a UN process that, on paper at least, is starting to crystallize into an actual roadmap. That mix makes it reasonable to view the U.S. track with cautious optimism about renewed engagement and equally cautious skepticism about whether it can deliver institutional change. The alternative is another elite bargain.
The Boulos plan
Much of the coverage of Washington’s Libya push describes it in the language of “unity” and “power-sharing” without saying what the plan actually contains. The proposal put forward by Senior U.S. Adviser Massad Boulos would install Saddam Haftar, son of eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar, as head of a new, empowered Presidential Council, while Abdulhamid Dbeibah remains prime minister and Libya’s security and military institutions are unified under the new arrangement. This detail matters as it explains the intensity of the reaction that followed. Libya’s major institutions have objected on a specific and stated ground: this arrangement hands executive power to the son of the dreaded warlord Khalifa Haftar.
A busier U.S. footprint, run alongside other coordinated tracks
Over the past year, the United States has shifted from largely remote diplomacy to sustained, in-country engagement through Boulos, who has become the public face of Washington’s effort to push Libya toward elections and unified institutions. He has shuttled between Tripoli and Benghazi, met the Presidential Council and the Government of National Unity, sat with Khalifa Haftar and eastern military leaders, and convened mixed delegations abroad in Malta and Paris. U.S. firms have signed new infrastructure and energy agreements alongside this diplomacy, and officials have floated ambitious production targets tied to the idea that oil revenue could push rival power centers toward cooperation.
Pakistan has also stepped into a mediating role between the GNU and eastern authorities, a move that follows a $4 billion Pakistani defense deal with the Libyan National Army and talks over a new Pakistani consulate in Benghazi. Saddam Haftar met Pakistan’s army chief in Rawalpindi shortly before separately visiting Washington to meet Secretary of State Marco Rubio, while GNU deputy defense minister Abdul Salam Al-Zoubi met Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau around the same time, a sign of how directly both Washington and Islamabad are now engaging the same set of Libyan figures. Pakistani sources say Washington is “fully aware and involved” in Islamabad’s mediation. This is a second track running in parallel with American knowledge, adding another set of incentives and relationships to an already crowded field.
Local actors are pushing back — openly, on substance, and in multiple centers
The most significant shift in recent days is in Libya itself. The objections increasingly target the substance of the deal. Presidential Council head Mohamed Menfi set an early tone, warning that any settlement “based on limited understandings” risks reproducing the division it claims to fix. Since then, the High Council of State has formally rejected the Saddam Haftar power-sharing proposal, arguing that any settlement negotiated outside Libya’s existing legal and constitutional frameworks is invalid, and warning it will freeze the membership of any Council member who supports it. Misrata’s community and military leaders, alongside civil society groups, told Boulos directly during his visit to the city that they reject any arrangement that would return figures associated with past abuses to power; protesters outside Misrata’s airport called it a “suspicious deal” involving parties who “represent only themselves.” Religious leader the Grand Mufti Sadiq al-Gharyani has separately urged Dbeibah to align with the Presidential Council and the High Council of State against the plan, and warned western military brigades that a Haftar-led presidency could later turn on them.
Multiple Libyan institutions and constituencies, in different cities, are rejecting a specific proposal on specific grounds. The plan would hand power to the Haftar family without an election.
The UN’s 4+4 committee: a roadmap on paper, and one Washington claims credit for
Set the Boulos initiative next to the UN’s parallel process and the clearest contrast is in the paperwork. UNSMIL’s “4+4” mini-dialogue committee — distinct from the earlier, deadlocked “6+6” joint legislative committee — has been meeting in Tunis since April, reaching consensus on the presidential and parliamentary election laws and the reconstitution of the High National Elections Commission’s board. UNSMIL says a working group is now drafting a final agreement on the first two milestones of the roadmap, expected to be signed at the committee’s next session.
Washington has folded this track into its own account of progress. At a recent UN Security Council session, the U.S. representative credited “the efforts of the United States, UNSMIL and other partners” for movement on unifying Libya’s institutions, citing the 4+4 dialogue alongside the first national budget signed in 13 years. The 4+4 process is producing a defined, publishable sequence of steps on elections. The Boulos-brokered power-sharing arrangement remains a leader-level proposal without a public document laying out its terms or consequences for non-compliance.
Boulos has pushed back on the idea that the power-sharing plan is “his” initiative, calling it Libyan-owned and noting the parties are shaping its content themselves. He’s also pointed to a specific symbolic endpoint: a final agreement signed at the White House, with President Trump present. That gives the process an explicit destination, even without published terms, and it’s also why some Libyan commentators view it warily, seeing Washington positioned as the stage for a deal Libyan institutions haven’t accepted.
Oil and money: a shared incentive across several outside powers
Much of the “oil for unity” narrative centers on U.S. firms and capital, and Washington clearly sees energy investment as a tool for binding Libya’s rival authorities into a shared framework. But the National Oil Corporation and Libya’s sovereign wealth arm have also signed fresh production-sharing agreements with Gulf investors, including Qatar’s UCC Holding, and European operators remain active. That weakens the idea that oil is a distinctly American pressure point Washington can use to compel reforms. Several external actors want a stable Libya, and none of them requires the others to condition capital on governance benchmarks. That makes it easier for Libyan elites to work with whichever partner asks the fewest questions.
Libyan commentary is already naming the crowding problem
The strongest case for skepticism comes from inside Libya itself. Libyan opinion writers are already describing a “summer surge of initiatives,” warning that competing tracks — UN committees, the U.S. envoy mission, Pakistani mediation, and domestic “mini-meetings” — risk running in parallel without enforcement mechanisms or broad buy-in beyond a small circle of the same figures. That critique carries weight because it is tied to this specific proposal and this specific week.
Cautious optimism, cautious skepticism
Washington’s engagement in Libya is certainly important, but it hasn’t yet resolved the core dispute. The U.S. is engaged with every major power center, backing UN-aligned goals, and helping mobilize investment in a more stable Libya. But the specific plan on the table, namely installing Saddam Haftar as president while unifying military command under the same settlement, has been rejected by the Presidential Council, the High Council of State, Misrata’s leadership, and Libya’s Grand Mufti, on the explicit grounds that it hands power to a warlord’s family. Libyan institutions want that power decided by voters instead. The UN’s 4+4 process, which Washington claims as part of its own success story, is producing an actual document on elections. The power-sharing plan has no equivalent public document. Whether Boulos’s initiative succeeds will depend on whether Washington is willing to send the specific terms Libyan institutions have already rejected back to the drawing board.
