The End of Gadhafi

It's official, Lybia is now well rid of Moammar Gadhafi. This may seem like a minor event to most Americans who - justifiably - may be focussed on more pressing economic troubles at home. But this could have enormous, mostly positive implications not just for the Middle East for Africa and the rest of the developing world.

Gadhafi saw himself as world revolutionary leader with particular interest in tilting at internationalist windmills. In the 1970s Gadhafi was a prime moving force behind abortive plans to unite various Arab countries into the Arab Islamic Republic or the Federation of Arab Republics. The FAR plan's collapse led eventually to a war between Egypt and Libya (Egypt won reasonably easily). In the 1990s, Gadhafi turned his vision southward and pushed for the creation of a United States of Africa.

Gadhafi was not only a consistent backer of terrorist attacks but he was also the primary source of training and weapons for some of Africa'sworst dictators and irregular militia groups. Gadhafi had close military ties with (among others): Idi Amin, Charles Taylor, Robert Mugabe, the Janjaweed, Slobodan Milosevic, FARC, Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and other, less infamous, tyrants, cleptocrats, thugs and killers. It's worth noting however that Gadhafi was consistently incompetent militarily. Other than successfully winning his coup d'etat 42 years ago, I don't think he was victorious in any military operations of note (I may be wrong but a string of famous defeats is foremost in my head now).

This man was not merely a quirky and somewhat clownish dictator who oppressed his own people. He was a force for chaos and bloodshed around much of the world. He had a knack for picking loathsome allies. His only saving grace was his military incompetence. If he had succeeded in more of his plans, the world would have been even worse off than it was given his bloody failures.