THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 214, August 30, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
ASSESSING QADDAFI
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
AN APPRAISAL OF MU'AMMAR AL-QADDAFI'S FORTY-TWO-YEAR RULE OF LIBYA: FAILURE OF QADDAFI TO REALIZE
HIS DREAM OF UNIFYING ALL ARAB COUNTRIES INTO A SINGLE ARAB NATION-STATE, & THEN CONSOLIDATING THE
ENTIRE MUSLIM WORLD INTO ONE UNIFIED ISLAMIC CALIPHATE -- HIS KEY ROLE IN THE INCREASE IN ENERGY PRICES THAT
BEGAN IN 1972 & CONTINUES TO THIS DAY -- KICK ING OFF THE ISLAMIC REVIVAL THAT ALSO CONTINUES -- UNSUCCESSFUL
ATTEMPTS TO SUBVERT THE GOVERNMENTS OF OTHER COUNTRIES -- A TURN TOWARD AFRICA & AN AMBITION TO
DEVELOP WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION -- GIVING UP ON HIS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS -- THE BENGHAZI REBELLION, WHEN
QADDAFI, IN RETREAT, REVERTED TO THE EXPLICIT BRUTALITY & VICIOUSNESS OF HIS EARLIER RULE -- LIBYANS IN GREAT
NUMBERS REJECTING QADDAFI, HIS FAMILY, HIS REGIME, & HIS LEGACY
FULL STORY:
The world's longest ruling head of state, Mu'ammar al-Qadhdhafi (the correct transliteration of his name), would have been
ruler of Libya for exactly 42 years on September 1, 2011. As he leaves the scene, his wretched reign deserves an appraisal.
Qaddafi took power in 1969, at the age of 27, during the waning days of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the immensely influential
pan-Arab leader of Egypt, and saw himself as Nasser's acolyte, but with a greater ambitions: whereas Nasser dreamed of a
single Arab nation stretching from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf, as an end in itself, Qaddafi saw Arab unity as the first
step to Muslim unity. Although Qaddafi failed to achieve any sort of unity, and his "Third International Theory" detailed
in the 1975 Green Book proved a total bust, he did have an early and marked impact on two major developments.
First, he had a key role in the increase in energy prices that began in 1972 and continues to this day. By challenging the
international oil companies' control over petroleum production and pricing, he began the transfer of power from Western
boardrooms to Middle Eastern palaces. Specifically, the chances Qaddafi successfully took helped bring about the
four-fold increase in oil prices of 1973-1974.
Second, Qaddafi kicked off what was then known as the Islamic revival and also still continues. At a time when no one else
was ready to do so, he proudly and provocatively advanced Islamic causes by applying aspects of Islamic law, calling on
Muslims worldwide to do likewise, and assisting any Muslims in conflict with non-Muslims.
Qaddafi's long rule can be divided into four eras. The first and most significant, 1969-1986, consisted of frenetic activity on
his part, meddling in issues and conflicts from Northern Ireland to the southern Philippines. An incomplete listing would
include the near crippling of Jimmy Carter's 1980 re-election campaign by making payments to his brother Billy; declaring
political union with Syria; aiding Iran militarily versus Iraq; threatening Malta over oil exploration in contested waters;
bribing the Cypriot government to accept a Libyan radio transmitter; sending troops to southern Chad to control the
country and unify with it; and helping a Muslim group in Nigeria whose violence left over 100 dead.
But these efforts led nowhere. As I wrote in a 1981 assessment, "Not one of Qaddafi's attempts at coups d'état has toppled
a government, not one rebellious force has succeeded, no separatists have established a new state, no terrorist campaign
has broken a people's resolve, no plan for union has been carried through, and no country save Libya follows the 'third
theory.' Qaddafi has reaped bitterness and destruction without attaining any of his goals. Greater futility can scarcely be
imagined."
That first era ended with the U.S. bombardment of 1986 in retaliation for the bombing of a discotheque in Berlin, which
seemed to affect Qaddafi's psyche. His rabid adventurism dramatically declined, accompanied by a turn toward Africa and
an ambition to build weapons of mass destruction. As his presence on the world stage shriveled, he was dismissed as a
nut-job.
A third stage began in 2002, when a tamed Qaddafi paid reparations for the Libyan role in the 1988 downing of a Pan Am
plane and gave up his nuclear ambitions. Although the fundamentals of his regime remained in place, he became persona
grata in Western countries, while the British Prime Minister and American Secretary of State paid their respects to him in
Libya.
The fourth and final era began earlier this year, with the Benghazi rebellion, when Qaddafi, in retreat, reverted to the explicit
brutality of his earlier rule, casting aside the carefully constructed image of someone newly paying attention to international
expectations. With his regime in the balance, his viciousness and delusion took center stage and the results were
devastating, with Libyans in great numbers rejecting him, his family, his regime, and his legacy.
After decades of repression and deceit, Libyans now face the challenge of discarding that foul legacy. They must struggle
to free themselves of paranoia, depravity, and contortion. As Andrew Solomon of the New Yorker summed up the
problem, Libyans "may recover from the Qaddafis' embezzlement and brutality, but the falseness of life in the Great Socialist
People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya will take a long time to fade."
Indeed it will.
© Daniel Pipes 2011. All Rights Reserved.
Originally Published in National Review Online, August 30, 2011
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, August 30, 2011
URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/10095/assessing-qaddafi
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
North Africa -- The Arab States of Islamic North Africa
Tunisia, Islamic North Africa, & the Arab World
Egypt, Arabs, & the Middle East
The Middle East & the Arabs
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is Founder and President of the Middle East Forum,
Publisher of Middle East Quarterly,
Founder of Campus Watch, Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a
signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former
adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a
former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for National Review Online, Front Page
Magazine, the New York Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and
developments in the Middle East have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington
Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network
television, as well as at universities and think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the
U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately
twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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