Oil politics will bedevil the resolution of the Libyan conflict even as the North African nation strives to implement radical reforms, writes Gamal Nkrumah Amid the good cheer of the African leaders dispatched to Libya this week to propose a peace initiative to resolve the military and political impasse in Libya, it soon transpired that the overly Pollyannaish peacemakers should not celebrate just yet. The search for a peaceful conclusion to the tug-of-war between the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi headquartered in Tripoli and the leaders of the National Transitional Council (NTC) based in Benghazi is far broader than the military dimension of the conclusive victory of either of the protagonists. The polemicist in Gaddafi increased as he got older. He shocked his people by championing women's rights in an ultra-conservative tribal society and at some personal risk, surrounded himself by women guards. Much to the consternation of the tribal elders and clerics, to begin with he instituted unheralded customs largely borrowed from the secular socialism of his mentor Gamal Abdel-Nasser -- free education, health and social services. Earlier than most other Arab leaders of his generation, he identified the West and capitalism as public enemy number one. However, in the last few years, he ran afoul of his followers by ingratiating himself with once-despised Western imperialists, flirting with the likes of Italy's Berlusconi, who dumped him at the earliest opportunity. The people of Libya hunger for explanations of their inability to freely express their political opinions. The time has come, many Libyans believe, for Gaddafi to give ground. He needs to explain more to his people about the tenets enshrined in his Green Book. Even if he sticks to his guns, he is obliged to make amends -- to correct the mistakes of the past. There are those, of course, who suspect that it is too late for Gaddafi to embark on a policy of perestroika, a far- fetched revisionism that at this particular historical juncture quite frankly will please no one. In short, the underlying problem with Gaddafi is his political zig-zags which have left his people confused and demoralised. The NTC rejected the African Union initiative, dismissing African interlocutors as Gaddafi sympathisers and tricksters and their peace overtures as a prank. The Libyan people, contrary to what Colonel Gaddafi might think, may be less accepting of relative prosperity without freedom of expression and political association than he and his entourage may suspect or take for granted, given Gaddafi's conflicting signals. They were ultimately left with the impression that all he cared about was his colourful outfits, his hobnobbing with Western celebrities, and the claptrap that comes along with this. Gaddafi and his henchmen have been especially inept in their handling of the country's current political crisis. Some of his entourage have worked around the clock with Gaddafi for three decades since he eliminated his earliest associates in Stalin-like fashion. Had it not been for the NATO military intervention on the side of the forces of the NTC, Gaddafi's goals could have been achieved much more effectively and according to much the same timetable that is now looking increasingly likely for the endgame. The NTC are beginning to show their ragged edges; they are not at all clear about how they will handle conflicts of interests between the different factions that make up the anti-Gaddafi front. The solution to the Libyan conundrum lies less in forcefully trying to supplant the Gaddafi regime and more in clarifying the NTC's ideological positions on a countless number of key questions. First and foremost how did NATO warplanes bomb NTC tanks by mistake? Why were NTC leaders so enraged and why with all its technical sophistication did NATO not acknowledge its "mistake" -- collateral damage? But this process of ideological clarification takes time, rather than arriving in one big bang as Western powers seem to expect. Gaddafi has long protested that his opponents are militant Islamists, most probably closely aligned with Al-Qaeda. This may well be correct. The real problem, however, is that as the countries of North Africa and the Middle East move towards democracy -- Western-style multi-party pluralism, that is -- it becomes increasingly untenable for Libya to claim to be the exception and for Colonel Gaddafi to run his desert nation as he did for the past 42 years. He, or rather Libya, will become an unacceptable aberration -- an odd juxtaposition in a region yearning for change. The leaders of the NTC are not obviously inspiring personalities -- as even their backers in the West can all too easily attest. And this is the reason few Western leaders, or Arab potentates for that matter, look to them in particular for Libya's salvation. Many young Libyans are joining the rebel forces, but few have an inkling of what would happen if and when Gaddafi goes. Disgruntled and disaffected Libyan youngsters might join the NTC rag-tag army in droves, but unlike their counterparts in Egypt and Tunisia, Libya's youth are impelled into action by a single motive -- to oust Gaddafi. What happens next is a mystery. Even high-profile defectors from the Gaddafi camp are sceptical about the country's future. Gaddafi's former foreign minister Moussa Koussa fled to London ostensibly because he could not stomach the atrocities of his commandant the maverick colonel, Koussa's master and mentor turned tormentor. "Libya could end up as the next Somalia," he lamented. That is nonsense. Libya has far too much oil to be permitted to slide into oblivion like Somalia. There will be a bigger role for the private sector in a post- Gaddafi era, but the Libyan leader had already given the green light to free market capitalism. His peculiar brand of state capitalism was fast giving way to unbridled private enterprise. Greater use of competition and choice are core to the new Libya that must emerge from the ashes of the Gaddafi regime. Even if militant Islamists within the NTC predominate, they are not likely to seriously object to the harshness of the free market. Indeed, there might be a deliberate effort to cut politicians' involvement in the day-to-day running of the oil industry. Amnesia is an appalling malady. Let us not forget that when the youthful and idealistic Gaddafi usurped to power in September 1969, one of the first moves he undertook was to nationalise Libya's oil industry incurring the wrath of the West. Today's nervousness in Western circles is worse than four decades ago because more is at stake. Contemporary Europe is threatened by a mass exodus of jobless youth from North Africa. Rising oil prices spell the impending doom of European economic growth and prosperity. The economic meltdown, the financial crisis of the euro and the flood of job hungry North African immigrants from across the Mediterranean have laid bare the energy starved continent's economic weaknesses. Its choice is to sit back and watch the world beyond the Mediterranean being embroiled in a tussle well underway between militant Islamists and pro- democracy secularists. The competition between the two ideologies' adherents is palpable. Gaddafi poses as the secularist nationalist, safeguarding his people's oil. The NTC are big unknown. Still, Europe cannot reduce its excessive dependence on North African and Middle Eastern oil whether it deals with Gaddafi or his Islamist and neoliberal foes. Surely Europe is better off dealing with the devil they know than with the devils they don't know. Whether the West continues its onslaught or packs up its toys and leaves, in either case the mess the West creates is a most unattractive spectacle.
