Turkey likely to send troops to Libya to defend Tripoli.

Recep  Tayyip Erdogan. 

Turkey is holding a vote to deploy troops to the Libyan city of Tripoli to defend one of the rival governments there. AP. Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj invited Turkish troops there after signing a military cooperation agreement with Turkey. Sarraj's government has been under siege in Tripoli from forces loyal to the rival government based in Eastern Libya under the command of General Khalifa Hifter. Turkey has gone so far as to recruit fighters in Syria in order to ship them to Libya. The vote will likely happen in early January and is extremely likely to pass. Support between the two governments of Libya is split with Turkey, Italy and Qatar supporting Sarraj while the United States, Russia, Egypt and France support Hifter. 

My Comment:

Yet another example of Turkey being an extremely poor ally to the Untied States. America has backed Khalifa Hifter but Turkey insists on backing his biggest rival. The why here isn't important it's the fact that yet again Turkey is actively acting against US interests internationally. 

I'm not sure why America supports either side in the Libya quagmire as the country has been a mess since the overthrow of Gaddafi. My guess is that we decided to back a winning horse after it was clear that Sarraj couldn't control the country. We know what can happen when Libya is unstable and it isn't pretty so I am guessing they just want someone in command of the whole country.

Can Turkey's forces actually save Tripoli though? I am not so sure. I haven't been too impressed with Turkey's military performance. They have been mildly successful in Syria against the Kurds but that was because they had heavy armor and air support. I am not sure if those things are going to be available in Tripoli. 

Indeed, I wonder how effective Turkish troops will be in an overseas deployment. They don't strike me as a military that has effective logistics. How will they be able to supply and support there troops and will the be able to deploy heavy weapons? I really don't know. 

What I do know is that Turkey is going to cause this war between the two governments of Libya to go on for much longer than it should. Whatever the pros and cons of Sarraj and Hifter, keeping them both in the game fighting each other will cause the war to continue and for more people to suffer. If one side were to win, and it looked like Hifter was winning, the war would end and Libya could rebuild. Turkey is preventing that from happening.