Libya: where from and to?

I just happen to stumble on this excellent piece giving good and level-headed background to Libya under Gaddafi and the possible (nightmare) scenarios that the country, the region and the world may face if current disturbances exacerbate into the civil war Gaddafi himself warned of.

Gadhafi is seen as an unusual leader, capricious and prone to bizarre behavior even compared to other dictators in Africa and the Arab world. He likes to wear colorful robes and eye-catching hats, and has a bevy of female bodyguards.

He was born in 1942 to a Bedouin family in northern Libya. At 21 he entered a military academy in Benghazi, and at 24 became a signals officer in the Libyan army. Three years later, at the ripe old age of 27, he led a group of officers in a military coup that led to the ouster of King Idris. The self-styled Revolutionary Command Council took power, headed by Capt. Gadhafi, who promoted himself to the rank of colonel.

According to Prof. Yehudit Ronen, an expert on Libya, the young captain led the revolt imbued with the feeling that he was capable of fomenting change.

"I tend not to belittle Gadhafi," she says. "Libya now has 10 civilian airfields, a respectable network of roads, hotels and a developed petroleum industry. He created an artificial waterway, and moved water from subterranean reservoirs from the Kufra region to the north of the country, where 80 percent of the country's population is concentrated. Libya has the highest rate of literacy in this region. Higher education is widely available, and more than 50 percent of university students are women."

Gadhafi has effectively forged national cohesion in a place where there was none, Prof. Ronen explains. "Before his rise to power, the country was administered based on tribal groups, which managed their economic and political affairs independently. Gadhafi arrived and started to break apart those frameworks in an effort to shift loyalty to the government and the regime. He bestowed prestige and money upon all the tribal chiefs.

"At the same time, he prevented various figures in the Libyan governmental system from consolidating power and rotated them between positions. Nor did he hesitate to use all the means at his disposal to strike at the opposition."

The system worked well, Ronen notes - until the first cracks appeared in the 1980s.

Initially, Gadhafi was considered an ardent supporter of pan-Arab ideology; he made many attempts to develop ties with other countries. In certain senses, he probably saw himself as the heir to his hero, Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser.

In 1976, he published "The Green Book," a compendium of rules in which he ostensibly set forth his worldview. He called the method of government in Libya "sultat a-sha'ab" ("the people's authority "), introducing a kind of Islamic socialism that fused religious principles (banning the sale of alcohol and gambling ) with social-welfare concepts. For example, Libyans are entitled to free education and health services; public transportation and homes are subsidized, but trade unions and strikes are banned.

Still, the private sector is very weak compared to the public sector, resulting in unemployment once estimated at 30 percent. The state rakes in vast profits of nearly $50 billion a year from the petroleum industry. But one of Gadhafi's mistakes was to focus exclusively on oil.

Governing institutions in Libya were largely symbolic, Ronen points out, citing as examples the cabinet, known as the General People's Committee, and the parliament, which lacks any powers.

"The bottom line was that he advised and they consented," she notes. "In practice, Libya was run by revolutionary committees made up of fanatic young people who supported the ideas of the revolution."

But beyond this, she adds, Gadhafi possessed enormous charisma, overweening self-confidence and great tenacity: "It is not fair to judge him at the nadir of his life. He was able to make people feel that they had something to look forward to, that their lives had a purpose. He had quite a few good periods in which he was able to set forth goals and present them as the Libyan people's aims."

After years of assisting terrorist organizations, Gadhafi decided to transform his image and that of his country. The change began with his fight against radical Islam in Libya, which he won in the 1990s. He later condemned the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

In 2003, after Iraq's conquest by the United States, he announced that he was abandoning his project to manufacture weapons of mass destruction and was ready for tight United Nations supervision. That decision led to the lifting of the economic sanctions on Libya and improved Gadhafi's status in the international community. In March 2004, British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Libya and met with him, and other Western leaders followed suit.

In 2006, Tripoli marked the 20th anniversary of the American bombing of Gadhafi's quarters, in which his adopted daughter, Hanna, was killed. (The singer Lionel Ritchie dedicated a song to her. ) In 2006, the British ambassador to Libya said Gadhafi had changed his policy because he and his aides had decided to do something about the fact that years of centralized economy had left many educated young people jobless. However, the change may have been too little and too late; those unemployed young people launched the demonstrations in Cyrenaica on February 17.

Did I mention that this analysis comes from Israel? Yes, a country which was at the receving end of many of Gaddafi's threats. This appeared in Israel's influential Haaretz newspaper. Considering the situation and past animosity, this would be a perfect time for some gloating vengefulness on Israel's part. However, Prof. Ronen has shown that levelheadedness does prevail among Israel's long history and proud tradition in academia, an area subject to sanction by likewise organisations worldwide.

Ad-hoc opposition militia in Derna, eastern Libya

But I digress. The report then goes on to focus on what comes next for Libya:

The civil war raging in Libya poses no immediate cause for concern. However, the long-term effects that the country's possible dismantlement will have on the struggle against global terrorism remain unclear. The opposition (as in Tunisia and Egypt ) does not have a formal, recognized leadership, and it is hard to imagine who or what will succeed Gadhafi. Libya might be swept by a series of tribal wars, which would make the country a haven for Global Jihad activists.

Simon Henderson, director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote this week that since the war in Iraq in 2003, Libya has been second only to Saudi Arabia in exporting terrorists to Iraq. Many of them came from the Cyrenaica city of Darnah. A Global Jihad infrastructure already exists in Libya; indeed, just a few days ago residents of Abayda, near Darnah, declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate there.

On the other hand, Prof. Ronen maintains that although post-Gadhafi Libya will be different, the population, the infrastructure and the economic indicators will be the same. An alternative to the current regime will eventually appear, she says: "The establishment has quite a few talented people, technocrats, security officials and diplomats who were at the center of the decision-making process and will constitute the leadership reserve when Gadhafi goes."

Henderson's analysis with emphasis on the suspected extremist Islamist sympathies of Libyans from the east of the country - the centre of the current opposition to the Gaddafi regime, is in tune with the concern many US officials have. This is evident from US State Department cables published by WikiLeaks about the subject of Islamic fundamentalism in Libya and the large number of fighters in places like Iraq from Cyrenaica (eastern Libya).

Ronen, on the other hand, has continued with her optimistic tone and has presented a future for Libya with solid foundations for a more equitable and functional society. We can only hope for the sake of Libyans that Ronen's view of the country's future prevails.

Flowers handed out by a pro-democracy demonstrator in Iraq

p.s. Did you know that there was a 'Day of Rage' in Iraq today? Most likely not. The BBC dismissed it as 'so-called', but still there were 7 dead! And they supposedly already have 'freedom and democracy'. Plus, a day of rage has been called for 11th March in Saudi Arabia! Let's hope that the biggest domino of them all falls like Egypt and Tunisia.