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Claim: After the death of Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Barack Obama admitted that the U.S. mission was his “worst mistake” as President.
Verdict: Misleading! Obama said the failure to plan for Libya’s aftermath after Gaddafi’s fall was his mistake, not the death of Gaddafi itself.
Full Text
Social media has been inundated with geopolitical posts following the recent prominence of Burkina Faso’s leader, Ibrahim Traoré, and U.S. AFRICOM leader Michael Langley’s comments.
This trend has triggered various narratives on governance, foreign interventions, and Africa’s political history, especially concerning the United States, Russia, and China.
Amidst this, a Facebook page called New Africa, with over 1.4 million followers, published a post on April 28, 2025, alleging that former U.S. President Barack Obama admitted that the 2011 mission that led to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s death was his “worst mistake” as president.
The page posted a photo of Barack Obama shaking hands with Gaddafi, alongside the caption:
“After killing the great Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi, Obama admitted that the mission was his ‘worst mistake’ as President. Libya is currently in turmoil. Nothing happened; nobody was held responsible. We all looked on till the issue died out. We failed Gaddafi. We cannot afford to fail Traore. We can’t let the guards down one more time.[SIC]”
The post has gathered over 5,000 likes, around 1,000 comments, and more than 1,000 shares.
Several users expressed anger toward Barack Obama for the intervention in Libya, blaming him for the country’s prolonged instability.
Nonetheless, others used the opportunity to praise Captain Ibrahim Traoré and called for greater protection of African leaders they view as defiant of foreign influence.
Some of the comments under the post included:
- Jason Mwape: “We must unite and defend Captain Ibrahim Traore at all costs.”
- Iya Apostle Olope: “No evil shall come near Ibrahim Traoré by the grace of God.”
- Kofi Atta Nkrumah: “There’s a God for all… as well, time is the best judge.”
- Valery Ayuk: “Africa is not a place of tolerance… Obama should be tried and jailed… No room for forgiveness.”
- Angel Fortunate: “The remorse is baseless because the U.S. didn’t start the unaliving of African heroes with Gaddafi; they started it in the early ’80s, and they’re not going to be forgiven this time around.”
Given the post’s virality, DUBAWA undertook a fact-check to verify the claim’s authenticity.
Verification
A review of credible media archives by DUBAWA shows that Barack Obama did not describe the intervention in Libya or Gaddafi’s death as his “worst mistake.”
In an interview with Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, aired on April 12, 2016, Obama reflected on his presidency and was asked about his biggest mistake.
He responded, “Probably failing to plan for the day after what I think was the right thing to do in intervening in Libya.”
Major outlets, including The Guardian and BBC News widely reported this statement.
Obama clarified that while he believed the intervention itself was justified, the lack of a structured plan for post-Gaddafi Libya led to chaos and empowered extremist groups.
Thus, the mistake he acknowledged was not the removal of Gaddafi, but the absence of a clear post-conflict strategy.
There is no record of Barack Obama explicitly calling Gaddafi’s death, or the intervention leading to it, his “worst mistake.”
Conclusion
The claim that Barack Obama admitted the death of Muammar Gaddafi was his “worst mistake” is misleading. Obama acknowledged that the failure to plan for Libya’s stability after Gaddafi’s fall was his honest regret, not the military intervention or Gaddafi’s removal itself.
