For the past six months Moammar Gadhafi has been a dead man walking for the entire world to see. While he was likely resigned to the fact that his fate had been sealed he nevertheless acted in a bizarre manner befitting a megalomaniac divorced from reality. He was convinced that he still held the reins of government. He might have averted his death had he fled the country when the popular uprising began in February. But Gadhafi refused to lay down his sword. His fight to the end culminated Thursday in his brutal death. He had no chance of survival with NATO taking an active role in the fighting. He would have fared rather well if all he had to do was to fend off the effort to depose him. But this was not an ordinary civil war; he proved to be no match against a coalition of Libyan rebels backed by NATO's air power. His death is not the end of combat operations in Libya. The country's many warring factions have significant weapon caches at their disposal; other nations will now try to curry favor with the emerging regime to get preferential access to the spoils of Libya's oil fields. Yet despite his conservative approach, Gadhafi was also a progressive on some policy aspects. Entire segments of the population saw their standard of living rise. They could also afford better education because of him. But the large number of academics who found themselves without jobs upon graduation would ultimately rise up against him. Perhaps this very success is what ultimately brought about his downfall. Oppression, discrimination and embezzlement were hallmarks of Gadhafi's 42-year cult of personality rule. The 27-year-old captain, who later promoted himself to colonel, considered himself an educator of and a mentor, of sorts, for his people when he rose to power. He introduced the hierarchical order of "God, Moammar and Libya," in descending order. By subscribing to Nasserism he got himself embroiled in whole set of international spats. In the 1980s his behavior led to U.S. bombings because he had violated international norms. This behavior was particularly brazen when he refused to extradite the Libyan responsible for the Pan Am Lockerbie bombing and when he came out in the open about his WMD program, which shocked the world. But when he agreed to abandon his nuclear ambitions in 2004 he appeared to be on the right path towards reconciliation with the West. But even as his downsides outweighed any positive aspects he might have had, for his people, the region or the world, a forgiving West still treated him with kid gloves, as befits this colorful, almost playful figure of the Sahara. Be it his theatrical escapades and the colossal tent where he welcomed dignitaries wherever he went; or his protective detail of female guards or Amazons, as they had come to be known; or the signature garbs he donned when he met diplomats even though they were buttoned up with a jacket and a tie. When all is said and done, he will go down in history as nothing more than a comical relief, albeit a long one, precisely because he had a negative scorecard and could only inflict limited damage. He will be denied a dedicated section in the annals of history.
