by Douglas C. Smyth

Compare Qaddafi to Mubarak and Ben Ali: the latter two look mild by comparison and Qaddafi’s held power for 41 years. Qaddafi has styled himself as leader of a people’s revolution, sequentially a pan-Arabist, a pan-Islamist and finally, a pan-Africanist. He recently crowned himself “King of Kings” at a meeting of African nations; he even tried to sponsor anassembly of Kings, but his Ugandan hosts canceled the meeting as contrary to their constitution!

In his activist heyday, he exported, or supported terrorists or terrorism globally: he was for almost any revolution, of whatever kind– unless it’s his own people rebelling against him. Recently, he appeared to go a zany with his pseudo-king costumes, but seemed to moderate his politics: he negotiated with the US and the EU, gave up his nuclear weapons program and cooperated with international cases against terrorists he had previously sponsored. However, his current resistance demonstrates Qaddafi hasn’t moderated at all. He defends his power at all costs. As to costs, he’s now using Libya’s oil money to fly planeloads of mercenaries from African countries to mow down his opponents. A survivor of one massacre in Benghazi said the shooting by Qaddafi’s forces is not to drive demonstrators away: “it is meant to kill them.” The security forces might have been Libyans of other tribes–it’s a tribally divided society–but they were probably “African mercenaries.” The just-resigned deputy Ambassador to the UN from Libya pleaded with African states to stop exporting them to kill his countrymen.

Megalomaniacs can drive nations to fiery cataclysms, and Qaddafi appears willing to go that far–”to the last bullet” his son declared. Qaddafi has, at times, styled himself as a socialist and even an anarchist (but also a monarchist). He recently moved to abolish most government departments and distribute the oil wealth directly to the Libyan people (except for the money he kept for himself and friends, and for contingencies like this, apparently). He also ranted about creating direct democracy and about abolishing the legislature, favoring local tribal councils. When leaders like Qaddafi speak of “the people,” they are only speaking about themselves, and their own divinely or ideologically inspired insights into what ‘the people’ want. For Qaddafi, rebelling Libyans can’t be ‘the people;’ they must have been suborned by ‘foreign powers.’

Libya may become the most radical Arab revolution yet, because of the violence used against it by Qaddafi, but if Qaddafi prevails, using his hired palace guard, the resulting autocracy could be even worse than before. Qaddafi is as autocratic as the most arbitrary late Roman Emperor; he speaks a radical line, but struts as if he really was King of Kings! His downfall might further open the region to democracy, but not necessarily to American advantage. The US imperial system in the Mideast will be driven further into disarray if Libya finally sheds its mercurial dictator. Libya wasn’t a unified country until after 1951. It could even split apart into eastern parts centered on Benghazi, where the protesters are now in control, and the western parts centering on Tripoli, where Qaddafi has reportedly ordered the Air Force to bomb and strafe protesters.

Only one thing is clear right now: Qaddafi is not going to go down without much more bloodshed.

Douglas C. Smyth has been a college professor for 27 years, teaching political science and the study of developing nations. He is a novelist, and has been blogging since 2006. His blog can be found here.