Libya - doomed from day one

Al-Libi was captured in the "war on terrorism" in Afghanistan in 2002 and held for three years in Kabul's high-security Bagram prison. Against all odds, he escaped in 2005.

In 2011 he resurfaced again, but this time as a friend to Washington who had decided that it was no longer friends with Gaddafi, despite all the efforts leading up to this to rebuild relations after that nasty Lockerbie business and all the sanctions. So here is al-Libi again, but this time around his terrorist inclinations are a bonus rather than a liability: He fights alongside intervention forces to oust Gaddafi.

With Gaddafi gone, al-Libi once again became a liability so he was taken out by a drone in Pakistan.

This brings us back to the present, with al-Zawahiri on the rampage and Libyan's wise to their liberators.

"This is a cut and dry example of the backfire of the US intervention strategy," Bagley said. "Let's hope it isn't attempted in Syria."

The post-Gaddafi Libya is not real. It's a dangerous fabrication of materials stuck together by the glue of dubious alliances with jihadists who are cut loose with their weapons once the immediate goal (Gaddafi's demise) was achieved. Forget about the oil for now.