Two Cheers for Libya
Before I learned how to spell his name without checking, Gaddafi is gone. From Reuters:
Libyan government tanks and snipers put up scattered, last-ditch resistance in Tripoli on Monday after rebels swept into the heart of the capital, Tripoli, signaling the end of the 42-year reign of Muammar Gaddafi.
The chairman of the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, has said no one knows the whereabouts of the Libyan leader, Al Arabiya television said on Monday.
It's always a good thing when tyrants fall. It's not always a good thing that comes after the fall, though. Richard Miniter warns us against over-sentimentalizing the Arab Spring in Forbes:
The “Arab Spring,” as it has been portrayed by the Western media, is an illusion.
Virtually every element of the media narrative — it is a spontaneous revolt, that it is Internet-driven, that it seeks democracy or income equality — is wrong or misleading.
After extensive interviews across the region and two visits to North Africa in July, it is clear that Western media and intelligence services have played a “Jedi Mind Trick” on themselves and us.
He then goes on to demolish some key myths about the tumultuous past months in the Arab world -- that the uprisings were spontaneous; that they were democratic; that they were homegrown; that they were led by the Muslim Brotherhood or other extremists. It's worth reading the whole article to glimpse the complexity and the uncertainty of the events in Bahrain, Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt.
We have no way, of course, of knowing how things are going to turn out in Libya, or if the new government -- which we recognized, oddly, last month -- will be better for United States interests or not. But it's entirely possible that the Obama policy of "leading from behind," which seems so feckless and half-baked now, may in a few years seem far-sighted and canny.
So, two cheers for Libya. Two cheers for instability in the region. (Are you listening, President Assad?) Because, as I've said for months now, the past thirty years it's been a story of Them vs. Us. But for the past few months, it's been a story of Them vs. Them. Which is an improvement.
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Comments :
Nov '10
Re: Two Cheers for Libya
Sorry, but I see little cause to be optimistic about Libya. Especially with regard to the Christians there, if the rest of the "Arab Spring" is any indication. The Vatican may give a damn about them, but no one else does: not the US government, not the MSM, not the UN . . .
Nov '10
Re: Two Cheers for Libya
I haven't heard a plausible scenario where the Muslim Brotherhood doesn't take over all of the Arab Spring countries, including Libya, and pretty soon, Syria.
Sorry to be a wet blanket, but I see a day soon where the middle east, with the possible exception of an embattled Saudi Arabia and a smoking, radioactive crater where Israel used to be, is nothing but a trans-national Wahabbist entity with not much to think about except how much they hate the Great Satan.
I just finished Mark Steyn's latest book. Can you tell?
Aug '11
Re: Two Cheers for Libya
Whatever happens, it will take a while before any action a violently anti-West post-revolution Libyan government can afford to look outward, which is nice for a while. I think Pete Townshend has the outcomes of revolutions right with "Meet the new boss/ same as the old boss", but I'm willing to give one cheer, maybe one and a half, for this thing.
Nov '10
Re: Two Cheers for Libya
As to his name, I always spell it the way the first president Bush pronounced it: KaDaffy. I think his pronunciation was deliberate, too. Works for me.
Dec '10
Re: Two Cheers for Libya
Before I learned how to spell his name without checking, Gaddafi is gone.
As best I can tell, you can spell it any way you choose. I've seen it spelled at least five different ways
Jun '10
Re: Two Cheers for Libya
what is there to cheer about? Can you spell "blood-soaked-massacre-followed-by-repressive-islamofascist-dictatorship-exporting terrorism-to-Israel-and-Europe"?