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Libya: Fourth on the List, Destroyed by U.S. and NATO Air Power in 2011

Evidence rating: CONFIRMED that Libya was on the list General Wesley Clark described, and that a U.S.-led and NATO air war in 2011 ended Muammar Qaddafi's government. STRONG that the war was aimed at regime change from the start while the public was told it was only about protecting civilians, and that the civilian-massacre case was, in the words of a British parliamentary committee, "not supported by the available evidence."

In one paragraph​

Libya is the country that shows the list outliving the men who wrote it. It was named in the 1982 Yinon essay as a state that "will not continue to exist in [its] present form," in a January 2001 paper by David Wurmser naming "Tripoli" among the "centers of radicalism" to "strike fatally," and in the Pentagon memo Clark described after 9/11. Nothing happened for ten years. Then, in 2011, under a different president and a different stated reason, U.S. cruise missiles and NATO bombers destroyed the Qaddafi government. "Nato meddling in Libya, again on false pretences, led to the removal of dictator Muammar Gaddafi and the collapse of the Libyan state in 2011. It has been a failed state run by warlords ever since" (Jonathan Cook on X, December 11, 2024).

On the list, three times​

  • 1982, Yinon: "If Egypt falls apart, countries like Libya, Sudan or even the more distant states will not continue to exist in their present form and will join the downfall and dissolution of Egypt." See Yinon: key passages.
  • January 2001, Wurmser: the United States and Israel should "strike fatally, not merely disarm, the centers of radicalism in the regions of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Tehran and Gaza" (as quoted by James Bamford in the Congressional Record, House, June 9, 2005). Tripoli is Libya's capital.
  • Fall 2001, the Pentagon memo: "starting with Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon, then Libya, then Somalia and Sudan, and back to Iran" (Democracy Now, March 2, 2007). PNAC's 2000 report had also listed Libya among regimes "deeply hostile to America."

The clip of Clark reading that list has been viewed millions of times; one WikiLeaks post of it drew about 2.7 million views (WikiLeaks on X, August 3, 2024).

2011: "protect civilians," then regime change​

  • February 26, 2011. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1970: an arms embargo.
  • March 12. The Arab League asked for a no-fly zone.
  • March 14. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was "eager to launch military strikes." Clinton, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, and Samantha Power pressed a hesitant President Obama (Washington Post, February 3, 2016).
  • March 17. Resolution 1973, proposed by France, Lebanon, and the United Kingdom, passed 10 to 0 with five abstentions (Brazil, China, Germany, India, Russia). It authorized "all necessary measures ... to protect civilians," "while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory" (The Guardian, full text, March 17, 2011).
  • March 19 onward. "U.S. and British submarines then fired over 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles" in Operation Odyssey Dawn under U.S. Africa Command; NATO took command on March 31 (Wikipedia, Resolution 1973). NATO launched more than 9,700 airstrikes.
  • March 28. Obama to the nation: "Broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake."
  • April 15. Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and Sarkozy, in a joint article: "it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Gaddafi in power."
  • October 20, 2011. Qaddafi was killed. NATO's operation ended October 31.

The State Department later described its own policy: "U.S. policy during the revolution supported regime change through peaceful means," and "We consistently emphasized at the time that Moammar Gadhafi had to step down" (Washington Times, January 28, 2015). Foreign Policy's headline in 2016 was "The Big Lie About the Libyan War": "The Obama administration said it was just trying to protect civilians. Its actions reveal it was looking for regime change" (Foreign Policy, March 22, 2016).

The case for war did not hold up​

  • Harvard's Belfer Center (2013): "NATO's intervention did not aim mainly to protect civilians, but rather to overthrow Qaddafi's regime, even at the expense of increasing the harm to Libyans." "NATO's action magnified the conflict's duration about sixfold and its death toll at least sevenfold." And: "when NATO intervened in mid-March 2011, Qaddafi already had regained control of most of Libya" (Belfer Center, September 11, 2013).
  • The British Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee (2016): "UK strategy was founded on erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding of the evidence." It "failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element" (Salon, September 16, 2016; UK House of Commons report, PDF).

The general who warned against it​

Clark himself opposed the Libya war, four years after telling the world Libya was on the list. On March 14, 2011, three days before the U.N. vote, he wrote: "To me, it seems we have no clear basis for action. ... We would once again be committing our military to force regime change in a Muslim land, even though we can't quite bring ourselves to say it." And: "on whatever basis we intervene, it would become the United States vs. Gaddafi, and we would be committed to fight to his finish. That could entail a substantial ground operation, some casualties and an extended post-conflict peacekeeping presence" (Atlantic Council, March 14, 2011). Qaddafi's aides tried to reach Clark and Tony Blair as intermediaries in the weeks before the bombing (NDTV, February 28, 2016).

The man who revealed the list said the Libya war was regime change in disguise. It happened anyway. The list did not need its original authors in office. It needed only the machinery that outlasted them.

After Qaddafi: weapons to Syria, and boots that were "not" there​

  • Journalist Seymour Hersh reported that "the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi's arsenals into Syria," feeding the next war on the list (as quoted in a Jeffrey Sachs essay posted by @amborin on X, November 10, 2025). See Syria.
  • In August 2016 the Pentagon acknowledged that a "small number" of U.S. forces were going in and out of Libya; one headline read "Contradicting Prior Claims, Pentagon Admits US Forces on the Ground in Libya" (Reddit r/worldnews, August 2016; Reddit r/politics). The public is told no troops; then the troops are admitted. The same pattern is now playing out in Iran.
  • Economist Jeffrey Sachs: "American interference, at the behest of Netanyahu's far-right Israel, has left the Middle East in ruins, with over a million dead and open wars raging in Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine" (same essay). Sachs counts "Libya (NATO bombing in 2011)" among the U.S. wars on Clark's list.

Congress never authorized the Libya war. The administration "explicitly argued it did not require Congressional authorization," and "a House resolution to authorize continued operations failed" (as summarized in a post by @4thOfJuly365 on X, January 3, 2026).

Status: Wesley Clark is alive. Barack Obama is alive. Hillary Clinton is alive. Susan Rice is alive. Samantha Power is alive. Nicolas Sarkozy is alive. David Cameron is alive. Jeffrey Sachs is alive. Muammar Qaddafi is deceased (2011). Nothing on this page states that any living person committed a crime.

Sources​

Research captures: twitter/t35__v409.md through t35__v420.md

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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