If true, Qaddafi’s death marks an important milestone — not just for Libya’s transition to a more decent order, but for America’s strategic interests in seeing the Great Arab Rebellions of 2011 resume a more benign trajectory. In the wake of the rapid collapse of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Mubarak in Egypt, it was Qaddafi’s ability to hold on to power by declaring war on his own people that signaled that the “Revenge of the Tyrants” was on, and that the region’s worst totalitarians had no intention of going gently into that good night — the will of their own people and the condemnation of the world be damned. Most destructively for U.S. interests, Iran’s handmaiden in Syria, Bashar al-Assad, quickly followed suit, and has been massacring thousands of his own citizens ever since in cahoots with the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guards.
Qaddafi’s inglorious end sends a belated message that this gambit, too, will ultimately fail — a powerful reminder that, try as they might, the region’s despots cannot through blood and brutality forever hold off history’s harsh judgement. Assad’s head will rest far less easy tonight. The morale of the Syrian people will receive a much-needed boost to endure the difficult days that no doubt still lie ahead. And perhaps most importantly, the hard men around Assad who have continued to do his dirty work, will have new cause to save their own skins by reassessing their misguided loyalties to a leader who is dragging them and their community ever closer to catastrophe. With a strategic stake in Syria’s fate that dwarfs our interests in Libya, the United States would be well advised to exploit the openings created by Qaddafi’s terminus to re-energize the effort to depose Assad, short-circuit the civil war that he is struggling mightily to ignite, and deliver a crippling blow to the Iranian terror machine that so threatens our interests and those of our allies.
— John P. Hannah, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, served as national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2005 to 2009.
Any dictator will have to see Qaddafi's mistake as being the abandonment of his WMD program.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYup. He did what the West demanded, gave up terrorism and WMD's, and played nice. And when the time came, we supported a bunch of Islamists to depose him. The writer is drawing the wrong lessons from this. If anything, Iran will double down on their nuke program now, because they think no matter what they do, we'll come after them.
These countries will look at this and go "nukes=respect".
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow can Mr. Hannah be hopeful that any Arab state free of its former dictator, will be friendlier to the U.S. and the West, when thus far all evidence points to the contrary.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Assad family are cold-blooded murderers but their removal likely will leave Syria in the hands of Shi'a even more ill-disposed towards us.
For all the karmic payback Qaddafi may have reaped, history is repleat with tyrants and despots who died in warm beds. . And the message will be that a despot with nuclear arms is much more likely to die in his warm bed.
For all the love the rebels had from Western elites and diplomats, they figure to be worse and more anti-Western than Qaddafi. Pretending otherwise is folly.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe could change the very reasonable analysis provided by Bugg, Douglas and others. We should trumpet this SOB's death, deliberately link it as retribution for Pan Am 103, vow a similar end to all those who kill Americans and promise nuclear-umbrella protection to all nations that give up WMD.
While I'm at it, I'd like a magic flying pony.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis is really quite pathetic. Despots arrive in the political world by violence and exit by violence. Qaddafi is just another dead despot. So what. There is nothing remarkable about Qaddafi's death and nothing "hopeful" about the new regimes that will vie for power over that nation/region, killing off each other until one man rises above the others by dint of guile and ruthlessness. Then we will make our peace with him or it. We've already sunk $125 million into a shell of a government and can expect nothing for that obscene expenditure. The death of a corrupt despot only serves to highlight the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of our own policies and the ruling class that imposes them. That is the lesson we should be drawing from this entirely predictable non-event.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseFinally, a commentator on NRO that isn't automatically negative about Qaddafi's death and Obama's decisions on Libya!
For all the people commenting on other dictators getting or keeping WMD: I think that's a interesting observation. But, how many countries does that actually apply to? Only North Korea and maybe Iran (Pakistan and India are "democracies" and already allies); both have been our enemies for over 30 years and to whom Qaddafi's death does not change their decisions one bit. So really, your comments are on a hypothetical country sometime in the future when world conditions will be different and Qaddafi's death won't matter.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMatt, these comments DO apply to the Mullahs and the Norks; Pakistan is by no means an ally; India is really a democracy, no scare-quotes are needed; and most important is that hypothetical country of tomorrow. Its leader will treat America based upon how we handled Qaddaffi and how we handle the aftermath of his much-welcomed death. Its leader will also see how we p+ssy-footed with Iran and North Korea, so have I any real hope?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI can agree with you on Pakistan on India. Qaddaffi gave up his WMD, and we embraced him. But, when he used his military against civilians, we turned against him. I think most people realize we can't support any world leader that does something like that. I disagree that we are soft on North Korea and Iran: both have long and complex histories with us and can't be easily fixed. So, I don't think it will be as bad as you fear.
By the way, what is a Nork?
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