Home >> Africa >> North Africa  Email  Print Gaddafi: The vulnerable “mad dog” without nuclear weapons Preeti Nalwa - 10/27/2011 It would not be a cliché to repeat the oft quoted Reagan’s famous one liner about Gaddafi – “the mad dog of the Middle East”. It will not be a cliché because what he said in 1986 turned out to be eerily prophetic.
Gaddafi was hounded and butchered like a “mad dog”. The gross obnoxiousness and the crass insensitivity of the inhuman treatment meted out to him by the Transitional National Council (TNC) when he was captured, then brutally, despicably and abhorrently killed by the soldiers of the TNC - ends the difference between him, caricatured as a repugnant dictator, and his challengers, caricatured as liberators, whose cause to take over reins from Gaddafi was buttressed, reinforced and sustained by the Western forces by providing arms, battlefield training, money and the cover of a ‘no-fly zone’ on the pretext of ‘humanitarian intervention’. Gaddafi had been a recognized head of the state for the last 40 years and addressed the United Nations General assembly in 2009. Even if his legitimacy to rule was declared to be over, when he was captured on October 20, 2011 he still was entitled to the rights under the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, 75 U.N.T.S. 135, which entered into force on October 21, 1950.
Gaddafi was reportedly injured by a NATO strike on his escaping convoy, found profusely bleeding when he was pulled out of a drainage pipe and begging for mercy. Article 3 of the Convention provides for specific prohibitions of acts like (a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture; (b) Taking of hostages; (c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment; (d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples. In the 5th century B.C., Sophocles, the Greek playwright had said that “Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law”. On March 29, 2011 the London Conference on Libya was organised where more than 40 Foreign Ministers and representatives from key regional organisations attended including the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Secretary General Dr Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Prime Minister of Qatar, Foreign Ministers from key regional countries including Iraq, Jordan, UAE, and Morocco, Secretary Clinton, and Foreign Ministers from across Europe and NATO members, along with Secretary General Rasmussen.
The dignitaries had gathered to provide support to the TNC. The British Foreign Secretary William Hague had proudly announced that the TNC had “launched, here in London, their vision for a future Libya that is free, democratic and unified”. He also added that “The Libyan regime will be judged by its actions and not in words.” The TNC had been tutored well in the use of arms, fighting techniques and their fighting strength bolstered by surveillance support and precision air strikes by the main coalition partners the US, France and Britain. But the tutoring was incomplete because it is just not enough to teach war or how to win war, it was equally incumbent on them to have tutored the TNC the ‘rules of war’. Gaddafi was to have been handed over to the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC). The TNC too, should also be judged by its actions and not in words. Only time will tell whether TNC was worth $1.1-billion spent, as of September 30, 2011 by the US Department of Defence, on operations in Libya, whether the Libyans deserved the onslaught of 112 Tomahawk missiles on behalf of the legitimacy conferred on the TNC. How the civilians bore the brunt of this bounding has been left to imagination rather than accurate reporting.
The media is already abundant with stories of atrocities, massacres and rampant executions being conducted by the so-called ‘revolutionary forces’ of the TNC. The humanitarian measure is missing.
Gaddafi was indeed and truly a “mad dog” for he made himself vulnerable by giving up the deterrent value of nuclear weapons when he surrendered them in 2003. In doing so, Gaddafi thought he was making amends with the West. In March 2004, Tony Blair visited Tripoli specifically to congratulate the ‘tyrant’ for relinquishing weapons of mass destruction. Subsequent developments leading to the release of the Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasetali Megrahi led to Libyan arms deal with the British worth $55 million in the year 2010. Not only did Britain profit by such deals, ironically the same arms were looted by anti-Gaddafi forces and used against his ‘loyalists’ force. In retrospect, selling of arms to Libya profited Britain twice. But for Gaddafi, the payoffs for abandoning the nuclear weapons had remained limited because though few conventional weapons systems were indeed provided to Gaddafi, the promised civilian nuclear technology was never delivered to Libya. Abdelrahman Shalgham, the Libyan ambassador to the UN, had voiced his discontent by saying that “We gave some devices, some centrifuges,…for America, but what do you give us? Nothing …that’s why we think North Korea and Iran are hesitating now to have a breakthrough regarding their projects.” Gaddafi, had in fact complained on April 26, 2010 that the Obama administration had not invited him to the Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington on April 12-13, 2010. He said that this snub would mar efforts to persuade Iran or North Korea to abandon their nuclear ambitions.
Gaddafi was probably forgetting the rules of the gamepolitik. First rule he forgot was that the rational interests of the states are paramount. Goodwill gestures are only secondary and especially, if they compromise critical defences, they are at the risk or cost of survival. He never learnt the lesson from Saddam Hussein’s end. Gaddafi wrongly thought that by giving up nuclear weapons, he would escape Saddam’s fate and win permanent friendship of the West. He forgot that he was actually in their bad books, and once, if circumstances were to converge to conjure opposition against him, the absence of nuclear weapons would only facilitate bolstering up the forces against him. Second, Gaddafi forgot the thumb-rule regarding the “certainty” of the “uncertainty of intentions” of the states. Since there is no guarantee regarding the future intentions and behaviour of the states, it is always prudent to assume the worst-case scenario and be prepared for it and never to let down one’s guard.
Third, Gaddafi forgot the logic of MAD of nuclear weapons that made war impossible. Kenneth Waltz, the distinguished neorealist scholar has propounded the theory that “more is better” and that the spread of nuclear weapons “makes war less likely.” His argument rests on the theory of deterrence and the fear of MAD which enabled the so called “long peace” during the Cold War. By giving up nuclear weapons, Gaddafi literally invited war to his doorsteps. Gaddafi’s brutal end will unmistakably be an eye-opener for those contemplating any compromise with their critical defensive/offensive posture. The most likely candidate is North Korea with whom the US has reopened bilateral talks which took place in Geneva on October 26, 2011 replacing “strategic patience” with “management strategy” in order to induce North Korea to give up nuclear weapons adhering to Complete, Verifiable, Irreversible, and Denuclearization (CVID).
In his April 5, 2009 Prague speech, President Obama had spelt out his vision of a nuclear-free world for which he even became a Nobel laureate on October 10, 2009. But his award winning speech had an adjunct caveat conveniently ignored by the generous dispensers of the prestigious award. Obama had added “Make no mistake: As long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies.”…Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished…North Korea must know that the path to security and respect will never come through threats and illegal weapons.” Security and respect did not come to Gaddafi either, both in life and death. When alive, he was called a “mad dog”, when insecure, he was killed like one, and when dead, respect was the last thing to have crossed the minds of NATO or the TNC.
NOTES
(1) Kareem Fahim and Adam Nossiter (2011). “A Massacre left uninvestigated in Libya”, International Herald Tribune”, October 26, 2011, p.5.
(2) Michael Slackman (2009). “5 Years After It Halted Weapons Programmes, Libya Sees the U.S. as Ungrateful.” The New York Times, March 10, 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/world/africa/11libya.html
(3) Kenneth Waltz (1995). The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate. New York: Norton.
(4) Remarks by President Barack Obama, Hradcany Square, Prague, Czech Republic, The White House Office of the Press Secretary, April 5, 2009.
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