After celebrating four decades in power last month, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi visited the United Nations (and the United States) for the first time and addressed the UN General Assembly today. He spoke after President Barack Obama, which symbolically, if not actually, created an uncomfortable encounter.
The controversy over the release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber “on compassionate grounds” and his subsequent hero’s welcome in Tripoli outraged many victims’ families and elicited a White House complaint. Many analysts and commentators have since remarked that this episode has confirmed the old cliché that a leopard cannot change his spots. Nevertheless, Washington faces a dilemma over whether to continue actively engaging Libya or to proceed with caution—holding short of military assistance or even re-imposing economic sanctions.
There’s little argument that Libya has been (at least partially) rehabilitated, following the nation’s 2003 renunciation of nuclear weapons and the 2002 $2.7 billion settlement of the civil lawsuit from the 270 Lockerbie victims’ families that was paid out in stages over the following few years. In response, Washington facilitated the end of UN Security Council-imposed economic sanctions and, in 2006, removed the former pariah state from the list of nations that promote terrorism. Washington henceforth began the process of initiating military assistance to its erstwhile enemy. Much progress has transpired, particularly with respect to core U.S. national security interests, but internal politics and the ruling structure within Libya are still largely the same.
Gaddafi has ruled Libya for 40 years now, building a sultanistic regime that resembles personalist dictatorships from North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung to Cuba’s Fidel Castro, from Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda to Zaire’s Mobutu Sese-Seko. All relied on repression of internal enemies, crushing dissent and wielding the cudgel of summary violence and imprisonment against civilians. But such repressive regimes need not necessarily be enemies of the United States—Kaunda led the Front-Line states against apartheid South Africa, but remained neutral in the Cold War, while Mobutu was an anti-communist ally noted for his legendary corruption.
Now, Gaddafi, a founder of the African Union and a former supporter of terrorist organizations, will perhaps make good on his claim to renounce any future support for international terrorism. Beyond Libya’s nuclear disclosures (including the details of the murky Pakistan-North Korea relationship), it has joined other U.S. allies such as Egypt and Algeria in the fight against jihadist groups. The nascent U.S.-Libya relationship, however, is not merely an alliance out of altruism or pressure from Washington—Gaddafi’s domestic enemies are largely Islamic terrorist groups.
Washington has further cause to still worry about Islamic radicalism in Libya. A West Point study concluded that 20 percent of Al Qaeda’s commanders were of Libyan origin. Many of them have hailed from the Derna region, where U.S. Marines captured a fortress in 1805—heralding the first U.S.-initiated regime change in the region. What is verse of pride (“the shores of Tripoli”) in the Marine Hymn is a source of resentment and a banner of recruitment for Al Qaeda.
In recent years, however, there has been a significant de-radicalization and demobilization of Islamic militancy in the North African and Gulf regions. Expatriate Libyan jihadists fighting for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan have helped sponsor other networks of foreign fighters in Iraq and Pakistan. But somewhere along the line, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Gaddafi’s main domestic enemy (which has tried to assassinate him), became alienated from the Libyans cadres fighting in Afghanistan. The Fighting Group initiated processes of de-radicalization and later opted for reconciliation negotiations with Gaddafi.
The United States obviously wants to continue this important regional process of Islamic de-radicalization. After the failure of U.S. efforts to promote electoral democracy in Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, and Iraq, Washington has settled for modest liberalization in Libya, Algeria, and Egypt. As such, the United States has looked the other way as these governments engaged in brutal repression of Islamic insurgencies and now approves of offers of general amnesties to reduce the threat of Islamic insurgency. In this manner, Islamic rebellions in Algeria, Mauritania, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt have all been greatly reduced as a threat.
And thus, back to Gaddafi. It turns out that authoritarian leaders, who though they hold human rights and democracy in low esteem, have for the moment solved the problem of political instability and Islamic radical recruitment by establishing national security states. But the Obama administration does not quite have the Machiavellian demeanor of its predecessor.
Even under this enlightened presidency, keeping the blinders on so as to avoid seeing our allies’ cruelty and human rights violations is probably still the preference of the Obama administration, which continues the traditional penchant for successful counter-terrorism over risky human rights stipulations to recipients of U.S. foreign assistance, such as Libya, which has received training from US Special Forces. Obama did not embrace Gaddafi at the UN, but neither can he easily push him, and his ongoing repressive record, away if U.S. counter-terrorism cooperation is to continue to grow.
Gaddafi, even in the best of circumstances, remains a dubious figure. The list of ongoing human rights violations is near endless, but outright censure is the wrong move. It would not be out of bounds to suggest that Gaddafi could brazenly return to his previous way of doing business—supporting Islamic militants and terrorists (to safeguard his regime) while painting the United States as the embodiment of evil. If this is the alternative, surely U.S. foreign policy officials may not be unhappy with a few human rights violations in the service of marginalizing Al Qaeda-linked groups in Libya.
Gaddafi’s peace negotiations with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group may reduce the frequency of his attacks on rural villages to purge hostile elements, but the repression of peaceful opposition and dissent will continue to be troublesome. Washington may find itself in the familiar position of aiding a dictator who marginalizes U.S. enemies but increases future sources of conflict. Increased repression against Islamic opposition—if planned peace talks do not consolidate the de-radicalization of Libyan jihadists—could reinvigorate Al Qaeda-inspired militancy in Libya and the Maghreb.
Washington should look past the hero’s welcome given to the Lockerbie bomber upon his return and re-engage Gaddafi—offering more development and military assistance, advising that he improve his treatment of his peaceful opposition, and repressing the insurgency only if talks fail. Democratization at this stage is not possible, nor perhaps even worthwhile, given that the sultan is still in charge, and Obama certainly has his hands full at the moment. At least for now, better to support Gaddafi’s terrible regime, just as Washington has done in Algeria and Egypt, and delay significant human rights pressure for a few more years, while the experiment in U.S.-Libya rapprochement evolves.
Henry F. Chip Carey is associate professor of political science at Georgia State University. His forthcoming books are Dilemmas of NGO Peacebuilding (Palgrave Macmillan) and Repealing What You Sow: A Comparative Analysis of Torture Reform (Praeger).