The Libyan leader is in a hole, but he will not be badgered like his Iraqi counterpart Saddam Hussein, speculates Gamal Nkrumah Say what you will about the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, his garrulous rhetoric has prepared him well for life in the combat zone. The fighting spirit of Gaddafi's forces may be open to question, but the resolve of the man himself is not. He is a survivor and he is determined to deliver a decisive defeat on his detractors, both at home and abroad. In defence of his notion of triumphalism, it must be pointed out that Gaddafi wants to go down in history as the legendary Omar Al-Mokhtar, the martyred father of the Libyan anti-colonial struggle against Italian imperialism. The Italians hanged Al-Mokhtar in a public spectacle that only enraged his people and drummed up support for his anti-colonial cause. Much like Gaddafi, Al-Mokhtar was portrayed as a savage brute. Today, the Western powers cannot openly call their military intervention in Libya a colonial aggression. They claim to be coming to the rescue of the downtrodden Libyan armed opposition. Western powers ominously named their aggression on Libya Operation Odyssey Dawn, an allusion to the epic poem of the ancient Greek bard Homer the Odyssey which has become a fundamental canon of Western civilisation. What the West didn't bank on is that Gaddafi would emerge as rhapsode (professional performer) or even the aoidos (epic poet) of this latest drama. Gaddafi's speeches accentuate his resilience even after news seeped out that his son Khamis, leader of the fearsome Khamis Brigade the West points to as a perpetrator of human rights violations, had been assassinated in a suicide mission by a Libyan airforce pilot in what was described by both Western and the quisling Gulf media. Note that the powers that be in Western capitals conveniently ignore that unlike the pro-democracy protesters in Tunisia and Egypt, the anti-Gaddafi forces from the word go took up arms against the regime. They barricaded themselves in Benghazi and then quickly moved to spread their tentacles over a number of cities in Cyrenaica, the eastern part of the country with pockets of resistance to Gaddafi in the west of the country. From the word go, the Libyan armed opposition were gung-ho or rather gun-ho. The stakes are high. If the standoff between Gaddafi and the Libyan armed opposition forces degenerates into an international conflict of Gargantuan proportions then the Western Shock and Awe II may backfire. Already an American military plane has been shot down, and Western forces mistakenly shot down a rebel plane. "Allied" bombing has resulted in over 50 civilian casualties. Western politicians in embarrassment are trying to convince Gaddafi's entourage to hand him over. "We're trying to convince Gaddafi and his associates that they need to step down from power," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner. His boss Hillary Clinton had the audacity to suggest that she will offer haven to any deserters. Her overseer had the effrontery to tell the world that while the aim of "Odyssey" is to get rid of Gaddafi, he was not the target of the operation. So far, things are not going smoothly for the invaders. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's condemnation of the invasion as a remake of the Crusades electrified and united foreign opposition to the war and created a groundswell of sympathy for Gaddafi. Demonstrators around the world are protesting the invasion nonstop. The badgered buffoon has magically metamorphosed into the latterday rhapsode. Another hallmark of the Gaddafi-style is his straightforwardness -- something that confuses his detractors at home and overseas. Certainly his record and demeanour stand him in good stead in the eyes of his diehard supporters at home and his admirers abroad. Is there room for Venezuelan President Victor Chavez's proposal to mediate a peaceful outcome? Achieving a balance of public and private interest would be complicated in Gaddafi's Libya. Removing some of his relatives, tribesmen and henchmen in the state apparatus would be a signal that he is prepared to institute a truly democratic state. Gaddafi must prove to the opposition that he is not just playing for time. His world is no longer his oyster, and he knows it. Who will be Libya's next leaders? Not even Western powers know for sure. The names of possible leaders of the Libyan anti-Gaddafi uprising may already be pencilled in Paris but the easiest way for Western powers to sabotage their chances of political survival would be to start openly discussing their French connection or prattle about their political camaraderie with Western capitals. The endgame as far as Western powers are concerned is Gaddafi's unceremonial departure from office, completely in violation of international and national laws. It is hard not to route for the beleaguered David facing down the Goliaths towering over him from the skies. United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates denied that Western powers were hitting civilian targets. "Virtually all our targets are isolated non- populated areas," Gates insisted adding that: "kinetic activity should decline." The West's "virtual battlefield" is a blunder. Gates admitted though that a US jet crashed in the northeastern region of Libya. A US F-15 Eagle that flew out of the Aviano Air Base in Italy en route to Libya from the Royal Air Base Lakenheath, Britain, was gunned down by Gaddafi forces. Both crew members were ejected safely and sustained minor injuries. The dynamics may look familiar enough to the PlayStation generation. Gaddafi's troops are on the move, but enforcement is patchy. Western powers and the West's conservative Islamist allies in the Gulf are both clear about what they see as desirable: they want to see Gaddafi ousted and Libyan oil under the firm control of Western companies. Both, however, are coy about the implications of their respective positions. Gaddafi has long refrained from encouraging his officials to introduce the trappings of Western-style governance structures on the pretext that they are inappropriate for an essentially tribal superstructure. His patronage network still delivers the support of certain powerful tribes and clans. Income inequalities in the Arab world are inextricably intertwined with a wide range of social ills that plague it. Not only does this inequality stifle social mobility, but it also leads directly to youth unemployment and to political and social unrest. Gaddafi has made it clear that a well-built boat will stay on an even keel as long as its passengers, a euphemism for citizens in this case, do not flock to one side, meaning those who took up arms to his regime. A fairness debate is long overdue as far as Libya is concerned, too. Libyan society might not suffer the same intolerable levels of inequality as the Gulf Arab states, but Gaddafi has long exaggerated the fairness of his own economic policies. Gaddafi is not known for any uncanny ability to turn political adversaries into allies. Anti-Gaddafi praetorians may be obliged to don a distasteful political purdah, clowning and masquerading as pro- democracy activists as they are rudely confronted with the worst aspects of their adversary's capriciousness. Are these men who served the regime of Gaddafi for decades trying now to convince us that they were liberal sympathisers waiting for the right moment to initiate the debate about democracy? A pervasive sense of indecisiveness mars their credibility as closet political reformers after decades as staunch pro-Gaddafi advocates. There is much speculation that those faithful followers who fought for Gaddafi in the past and now champion political change are Islamists of varying degrees of militancy. The criticism that matters at the moment, though, is that by not easing his grip on power Gaddafi has chosen to tolerate a grim political outlook at least for 2011. It took the near collapse of the Gaddafi regime to finally bring long- bubbling debates over wealth distribution and Islamic social justice to the fore. Comments about their Islamist tendencies received only cursory coverage in the Western media. In Tripoli, in sharp contrast, Gaddafi after apprising the perils of Al-Qaeda takeover, has now curiously taken to boosting his Islamic credentials indelibly marking the Western intruders as "Crusaders". While the list of "culprits" in Libya's civil war drawn up by politicians and the Pan- Arab media was long -- with Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia bearing the brunt of the blame -- the nature of the bad blood between Gaddafi and the West's cohorts in the Gulf has not only inflamed the situation in Libya to the West's advantage, but has conveniently taken the heat off the savage suppression truly peaceful pro-democracy uprising in Bahrain and Gulf states. The perception of Gaddafi's detractors in their National Transitional Council as liberal sympathisers never did hold back their political careers under the Gaddafi regime. Most of them showed a rare talent for moving up the rigid hierarchy of Gaddafi's system. Surprisingly they omitted "Islamic" from the name for the council. Just in the nip of time, the West came to the rebels' rescue. But appearances can be deceptive. "I'm here to stay," thundered Gaddafi in his latest harangue. The literal meaning of his words was probably all that Gaddafi intended. He has also agreed to "an immediate cease-fire and the stoppage of all military operation," Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa said Sunday in the face of Western airstrikes. The problem is that the Gaddafi regime has hitherto shown a penchant for cosmetic reform. And, even more importantly a distinctly hedonistic leadership jealously guards the levers of power. It will be a tough test of his political judgment, of his fortitude, and of his autocratic leadership style. Gaddafi's type of ideological orientation frankly makes a mockery of the modern, Western-style governance structures. The level of secrecy surrounding the going-ons inside Bab Al-Azizia, Gaddafi's nerve centre, provides a clear example of how far behind Gaddafi's Libya is when it comes to creating a transparent and open governance environment. His officialdom shows little sign of giving the levers of power up in the near future. "Gaddafi, a Bedouin Arab soldier of unusual character and inspired by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel-Nasser, promoted within the heart of the Armed Forces a movement which overthrown King Idris I of Libya," stressed Cuba's Fidel Castro in his defence of Gaddafi. "These antecedents explain the notable influence that he later exercised in Libya and over other political leaders whether or not they are now for or against Gaddafi. He initiated his political life with unquestionably revolutionary acts," Castro proficiently summed up. Castro has eloquently argued that Gaddafi's detractors have missed the bigger picture. In the eyes of the most critical faultfinders of Gaddafi he is a tyrant. In retrospect, debate and disagreement on political reform in the Arab world will never be complete. Always a loose cannon, Gaddafi will hold a special place. Even as he stares down the mighty forces of the evil empire, he proudly proclaimed that his enemies will be consigned to the dustbin of history. Which of the other beleaguered Arab autocrats will be so remembered.
