Donald Trump aide Sebastian Gorka drew Libya ‘partition’ plan on napkin

Gorka proposed the plan weeks before Trump's inaugural and was turned down by the European diplomat with a response that his suggestion would be “the worst solution” for Libya.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump talks to senior staff Steve Bannon during a swearing in ceremony for senior staff at the White House in Washington, DC January 22, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

One of US President Donald Trump closest aides, Sebastian Gorka reportedly proposed to partition Libya into three parts as a solution to end violence in the country. In a plan he drew on a napkin, Gorka had mooted the idea in a meeting with a European diplomat. According to The Guardian, Gorka proposed the plan weeks before Trump’s inaugural and was turned down by the European diplomat saying that his suggestion would be “the worst solution” for Libya.

Gorka is a member of the Trump’s National Security Advisory team and is said to be competing for the White House post of presidential special envoy to Libya, a position that is yet to be formally announced. The map Gorka drew on a napkin showed the North African state split into three sections, apparently based on the old Ottoman provinces of Cyrenaica in the east, Tripolitania in the northwest, and Fezzan in the southwest.

“This is like a litmus test of how much you know about Libya. If you the only thing you know is that it was cut into three, then it shows you are clueless about the situation in Libya,” Mattia Toaldo, A Libya expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations thinktank, told The Guardian.

Libya has been engulfed in conflict between two competing governments since the Nato-backed removal of former president Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The country is currently divided with the West throwing its weight behind the UN-backed Government of National Accord in Tripoli, led by Fayez al-Sarraj and East, Tobruk, led by Anti-Islamist military strongman Khalifa Haftar who was previously a leader of the anti-Gaddafi rebels. Russia has given its tacit support to the east.

There have been concerns among European states that the White House will reverse the Obama administration’s strong support for the UN-backed Libyan government of national accord.

Gorka is a former editor for National Security Affairs for the far-right News Network Breitbart, where he worked for Steve Bannon. Like Bannon, who believes that the struggle against radical Islam should be the central theme of US foreign policy, Gorka also advocates hardline policies for tackling radical Islam and sees the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group bent on infiltrating the US.

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