America is uniquely positioned to help, and it should.
 | By Krista Mahr Senior International Editor, Opinion |
For years, people in the coastal city of Derna worried about the dams. Residents, officials, hydrologists. Many said the two-decade-old structures, which are situated not far outside the city, needed attention — like so much else in Libya's fractured society. |
It will be some time before there is any definitive answer on how many lives were lost when the two dams finally gave way after a heavy storm on Sept. 11, sending a wall of water through Derna's sleeping neighborhoods. On Wednesday, the city's mayor said that the death toll could be as high as 20,000. |
The unprecedented catastrophe quickly stoked fears that other dams across Libya are at risk of bursting, too, and made brutally clear the price that so many communities across the world will pay as aging infrastructure fails to withstand the curveballs climate change is throwing. |
It also refocused the world's attention on the human consequences of Libya's long-running political crisis — and America's role in it, as the former U.S. diplomat Ethan Chorin wrote for Times Opinion this week. |
Since 2014, Libyans have lived under competing power centers in the east and west of the country, a situation that grew out of the chaos after a NATO-backed intervention removed Muammar el-Qaddafi from power in 2011. The conflict and the absence of a central government has profoundly affected Libyans' lives for more than a decade — including when it comes to making sure public structures are safe. |
It's hard to see how the dynamic between rival administrations will not complicate Libya's long recovery to come. And while search-and-rescue efforts are underway and international aid is flowing in, it's the United States that is best placed to step in with substantial help to get Libyans through this crisis, Chorin argues. |
Not only does Washington have a unique obligation to Libyans — as it helped unseat Qaddafi and then retreated after the 2012 attack on American facilities in Benghazi — it is also uniquely positioned to help. President Biden has offered some emergency aid through relief organizations, but the United States has the equipment, the technical expertise and the diplomatic heft to do more, Chorin says. |
"After years of treating Libya as a problem to contain and keep at bay, the United States has an opportunity, now, through this disaster, to re-engage directly with the Libyan people," Chorin writes. "We should embrace it." |
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