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Grotesque political careers usually end grotesquely, and Moammar Gadhafi’s end proved to be no exception. Grainy cellphone images from Libya yesterday showed the bloody corpse of the self-proclaimed “eternal revolutionary” killed by a popular revolution.
For 42 years, Colonel Gadhafi’s bizarre rule terrorized his people, who in February finally took inspiration from Tunisia and Egypt and demanded their freedom. For the better part of that era, Gadhafi was also a global menace. Only Osama bin Laden has killed more noncombatant Americans and Europeans through acts of terror. Neither man should be pitied for the manner of his death.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in Tripoli on Feb. 13, 2011.
Libyans have earned their celebrations. After the regime turned its guns on peaceful protestors eight months ago, a rough and sometimes ready rebel army was organized and a broadly representative transition council set up in Benghazi. In their march toward Tripoli, which fell in August, fighters were welcome by a public that had every reason to despise Gadhafi and his sons.
President Obama, Britain’s David Cameron, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and even the Arab League deserve credit as well. The Europeans pushed for an intervention to help the rebels, who by March were besieged in western Libya. An initially reluctant White House came around just in time to save Benghazi from a Gadhafi onslaught. The U.S. military led the targeted bombing that turned the tide. Thousands of innocent lives were saved. Gadhafi also wanted to derail the democratic transitions in Tunisia and Egypt, and had he crushed the rebellion he would have been a dangerous rogue.
There’s a lesson here about America’s global role. U.S. military leadership and stealth bombers, refueling tankers, drones and satellites were indispensable over Libya. But Mr. Obama’s decision to keep a political low profile during the war—to “lead from behind”—hurt the cause. NATO was left without a political general, and at times it wobbled. The U.S. was late in recognizing the Benghazi government, and Mr. Obama’s calculated reticence invited a backlash in Congress over war powers.
Yet the President was a statesman compared with some GOP pretenders to the Commander-in-Chief’s chair. Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and Newt Gingrich opposed U.S. participation as a high-risk intervention, a claim that now looks strategically mistaken and politically opportunistic. John McCain, a Republican who never wavered on Libya, yesterday offered adult advice for the U.S. now “to deepen our support” for Libya’s coming move from dictatorship to something new.
Libya opens this chapter with some advantages. It is a small country of 6.4 million that has oil, a relatively well-educated population and good infrastructure that has been damaged but not destroyed in eight months of fighting. Oil money can buy plenty of domestic good will as long as it is perceived to be shared fairly and overseen by a legitimate government.
On this score, Libyans have some models to draw on. Iraq has a federal system that, while imperfect, distributes power and wealth among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Something similar might work in Libya, whose fault lines are tribal and regional. It is more important to set up a good institutional structure than to rush into elections. The alternative to democracy in Libya—or Egypt or Tunisia—is a return to centralized authoritarian rule.
In the passion of the moment, calls for retribution are inevitable and are heard often in Libya. Yet successful transitions to democracy—in South Africa, the Philippines, Poland or Chile—have avoided revenge. Libya’s interim leaders seem to get this. The head of the interim council, Mahmoud Jibril, said in his first speech after Tripoli fell in August that Libyans must show an “ability to forgive.”
Skeptics in the West will note that Libya lacks the experience of a free society built on compromise, and that’s true. The presence of Islamists on the interim ruling council is also worrying, and an insurgency can’t be ruled out. However, Gadhafi’s internal security apparat was less extensive than Saddam Hussein’s, and most of the mercenaries will melt away. The months ahead will have drama and false turns, but Libyans have at least been given a chance to build a future free of tyranny.
Gadhafi’s fate will also echo for Syria’s Bashar Assad and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh. Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled into a comfortable exile. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak held on longer and now sits in jail. Gadhafi declared war on his people and ended up dead. Mr. Assad has taken the Gadhafi route in response to Syria’s popular uprising, and Mr. Saleh refuses to step aside and is moving that way.
The U.S. can’t dictate events, but a superpower—and America remains the world’s sole such power, no matter the current declinist vogue—can still shape events for the better. Libya’s successful revolution is the latest proof that liberating the world of a dictator can serve America’s strategic interests and its moral principles.
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Source: The Wall Street Journal, October 24, 2011
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