Is the international community about to help Libya fix itself and gain stability or will it repeat the same errors of judgment and commit more mistakes than it did five years ago? Those mistakes helped make Libya become more chaotic, more ungovernable and more destabilizing to its immediate and regional neighbors.

On June 7, Britain circulated a draft resolution at the United Nations to authorize European naval forces to intercept ships suspected of smuggling arms to the Islamic State (IS) in Libya. This appears to be counter to what was agreed to in a May 16 Vienna meeting in which major powers promised to help Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) arm itself to confront IS. However, the latest draft resolution aims to tighten the noose around IS while calling for the easing of the arms embargo against the GNA.

After the May ministerial meeting, the United States, Russia, Italy, Germany and Libya’s neighboring countries, along with at least three regional organizations including the Arab League, European Union and the United Nations, agreed to lend further support to Libya’s fragile government and to translate this political support into on-the-ground material assistance.

However, careful reading of the meeting’s adopted final communique reveals that the international community is about to blunder again in the North African country, probably repeating some of its worst mistakes committed five years ago. In February 2011, leading world powers, including France and the United Kingdom, rushed to help what they called the Libyan revolution to topple Moammar Gadhafi, only to send the country into chaos and lawlessness. They supplied arms and training to rebel forces without any real concern about where such weapons could end up and who was being trained.