Qaddafi’s Death Is a Warning Sign to Dictators
Rime Allaf, October 20, 2011
There was hardly anyone in the Arab world who did not have an opinion of Muammar Qaddafi. He was so outrageously provocative and different compared with the other 20 or so blander dictators. He was the incoherent fool who made the most sense when addressing Arab summits and spiting his fellow leaders by mocking their every stance; he was entertainingly candid at times, but despised.
The Arab League’s rapidity in supporting foreign intervention in an Arab country could have probably only happened in Qaddafi’s Libya, and few in the region will mourn him; but even while his disappearance is a relief, his brutal killing at the hands of Libyan rebels will not reassure many for a number of reasons.
Qaddafi is the Arab Spring’s first leader to be captured, and killed, by his own people. Of course, they could not have done it without NATO’s help, but it was the will of the revolutionaries that mattered most. This is a first for the Arab world, and even Qaddafi’s most avid haters will wonder whether it was ultimately a good thing to allow this precedent.
Indeed, developments in Libya are already having strong repercussions in other Arab countries where revolutionary fervor is boiling, and there is little doubt that the images from Surt worry more than one dictator.
People celebrating in Tripoli and Benghazi tonight have been chanting for Syria and Yemen, countries on whose future the Arab League and the Western powers are currently split. The ultimate success of the Libya intervention may bode ill for the Assad regime in particular: even when most still reject foreign intervention, there are increased comparisons between the brutality of the two regimes in dealing with the initially peaceful popular uprising. Many Syrians have blamed the Libyan imbroglio for the U.N.’s inability to pressure their own regime; now that the intervention has achieved its goals, many Syrians will hope to use this as a warning to Assad.
Just as important, it remains to be seen how Libya will move to the post-Qaddafi era, and whether it will make a good showcase not only for foreign intervention, but also for armed resistance to a brutal dictatorship.
This is no place for foreign officials and political appointees to come to micromanage the affairs of a country in which they intervened. Nobody believes for a moment that Libyan oil will not be a factor in future relations, but this must not be done with a victor’s mentality while Libyans struggle with their transition.
Whether for the sake of Libyans or of the entire Arab people, it is crucial that they now be left alone to rebuild their country and to set the foundations of a decent, egalitarian society. The best thing that could happen to Libya is for NATO to withdraw immediately and for the U.S. and its allies to back off in word and in deed.
Setting Libya free and leaving it to formulate its own destiny would be one of the best catalysts for its recovery, and the best contribution to the revolutionary spring of many Arabs in need.
