With Obama's Help

Both Moammar Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein would had lived longer lives had not the countries of the West hurried to help Libyans and Iraqis to get rid of them.

Yesterday, the Libyans killed the man who ruled over them for more than 40 years, just like the Iraqis treated their leader five years ago. With just one little difference: Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging after a public and media-rich process. Gadhafi was shot in his head like a dog in an act of lynching and in a trial by a bloodthirsty mob. A matter of luck and circumstance.

But the irony is that the two of them, both Gadhafi and Hussein, would have lived happily to this very day had not Western countries rushed to help Libyans and Iraqis to dump them. Through offensive military maneuvers, intelligence assistance from the air and the ground, ammunition, equipment and whatnot.

In other words: it’s not the Iraqis but rather the Americans who brought down Saddam Hussein, just as was the NATO alliance, and not the “rebels” with colored bandanas and second-hand trucks that terminated Gadhafi’s governance. And let’s also add: it was Washington that, at the beginning of the journey, threw Hosni Mubarak to the dogs, and perhaps, currently regrets this a little as well.

This brings up melancholic thoughts regarding the effective contribution of Western states to the promotion of democratic values and human rights in the lands of the Middle East. What’s going on at the moment in post-Saddam Iraq begs that the United States Army not leave, lest it falls prey to Iranian subversion; what’s happening in post-Mubarak Egypt has not stabilized yet, and it is still groping its way. … What’s to come about in Libya, torn between rival tribes, and who knows when they will unite around a central government — all this is unequivocal proof that it’s relatively easy to knock down a despotic ruler by means of superior military technology, but much harder to build a new and modern country on the ruins of the old regimes.

Learning Lessons

Middle East tyrants who still remain in their seats, like Bashar al-Assad, could draw three immediate lessons from the sad case of Saddam, Gadhafi and Mubarak. The first lesson: Do not ever be a hero, do not wait till the end and run [with your life] — as long as it’s possible to escape.

For who is more fortunate: the dead Gadhafi? The jailed Mubarak? Or the Tunisian Ben Ali who managed to flee to Saudi Arabia?

The second moral: Never dismantle, out of your goodwill, the arms at your disposal, let alone when it comes to non-conventional weapons. Gadhafi has already been said before to be a complete idiot, in Middle Eastern terms, when he disarmed the chemical weapons he stockpiled and when he dismantled the nuclear capabilities he intended to develop. This way, he made himself a perfect target for the bombers of the [North] Atlantic Treaty.

The third conclusion: Always care to forge alliances with powerful regional parties that are also furnished with advanced weaponry, who can cover you with an umbrella of deterrence in face of the West’s attack, such as Iran and Hezbollah. And this is exactly what Bashar al-Assad is doing right now. Since he learned the second and third lessons, he does not yet feel like he needs to implement the first one.