Officials in Abu Dhabi have seen the rise of Qatari-backed Islamist groups in Libya and other MENA nations as an unsettling development, due to the potential implications for the UAE’s long term political and economic order. Viewing Al-Islah as a group committed to toppling the UAE’s political order, Emirati authorities have sought to crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood’s Emirati branch and antagonize the movement’s affiliates across the MENA region. In maintaining a legal, political and military campaign against political Islam, the UAE shares the Tobruk government’s conviction that the Islamist militias which have held Tripoli for the last sixteen months are “terrorists.”

Libya is where Doha is fully committed to backing its Islamist allies, which have proven resilient in many battles, have stood their ground in strategically vital areas of the country, and currently carry their share of leverage at the roundtable. Last year, the BBC described the February 17 Martyrs Brigade (a militia in the Libya Dawn coalition) as the “biggest and best armed militia in eastern Libya.”

Fighters loyal to Libya Dawn believe that they are waging the struggle against Qaddafi loyalists and authoritarianism by fighting forces loyal to the UN-recognized government in Tobruk. Whereas Qatar’s efforts to create a strong alliance with Egypt during Morsi’s presidency did not pay off, Doha sees Libya as an important battleground in the emirate’s ambitious foreign policy agenda.

Ideally, the Emirati and Qatari rulers would work together to promote peace in Libya after recognizing that stability and security in the North African nation would open many commercial and economic doors to the Gulf Arab states. In fact, one of the UAE’s main motivations for sponsoring the anti-Qaddafi uprising was to secure lucrative deals in the country following the dictator’s fall. In 2009, when Dubai’s real estate bubble burst, developers in the Emirates looked abroad, and viewed Libya as a valuable opportunity. Al Ghurair Group, DP World and Etisalat were among the major UAE-based companies which expressed interest in investing in post-Qaddafi Libya. However, Libya’s political unrest and violent turmoil forced such plans to be placed on hold.

Given that Libya’s eventual reconstruction will surely depend on support from the Gulf, the UAE and Qatar would both be wise to push toward a diplomatic settlement aimed at securing a long-term resolution of the dispute between Libya’s two governments. Doha and Abu Dhabi must recognize that neither will fully benefit from what Libya has to offer until a peaceful settlement is reached. By further militarizing the conflict, the prospects for stability in Libya will certainly diminish. If the UAE and Qatar can shift their focus in Libya from military issues to the diplomatic arena, and if both were to make ideological compromises in the process, the goal of securing peace in Libya could become more realistic. In the absence of that, the proxy war in Libya will likely continue for a long time to come, and neighboring states will continue to suffer from the destabilizing spillover effects.

The UAE and Qatar have an opportunity to positively shape the future of post-Qaddafi Libya. The question is whether they will seize that opportunity or continue to wage their proxy war in Libya.

Giorgio Cafiero is the Co-Founder of Gulf State Analytics. Daniel Wagner is the CEO of Country Risk Solutions.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Al Jazeera English