Ding, Dong, Qaddafi's Dead

Today Libyan rebels killed Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator. This was the guy behind the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Ronald Reagan tried to get Qaddafi a couple of times. Once was in 1986, when Qaddafi's compound was bombed and Qaddafi claimed that his infant daughter was killed. As it turns out, she is still alive and became a doctor.

Qaddafi cozied up to George Bush in 2006. It was the only concrete positive result that Bush could claim from the Iraq war: he "forced" Qaddafi to abandon his nuclear program by the threat of invasion (as if we could have afforded to start another massive war in 2006).

The Lockerbie bomber was captured, tried and imprisoned in Britain, but was released in 2009 for "humanitarian" reasons (they thought he had terminal cancer). This rankled a lot of people. Well, he was still alive earlier this month, but predicted he only had days, weeks or moths to live.

The unrest in the Arab spring spread from Tunisia, to Egypt, to Yemen, to Syria and to Libya, where it grew into an armed rebellion. After 40 years of dictatorship a lot of Libyans were unhappy with his eccentric rule, and many soldiers and insiders joined the rebels.

After calling anyone who objected to Bush's calamitous invasion of Iraq a traitor, pretty much every Republican blasted President Obama when he agreed for NATO to provide air support for the rebels. One wing of the Republican party called the strategy weak-kneed and demanded a full-court press as in Iraq. Another wing of Republicans said we shouldn't help them at all, we should keep our noses out of other countries' business. Other Republicans didn't want us to do anything that might possibly help any Muslims at all because they're apparently our mortal enemies.

The victory in Libya belongs to the Libyan people, not NATO or President Obama. It can still end badly if the elections don't materialize on schedule and internecine warfare erupts. If things go right Libya will become a democracy with a Muslim majority like Turkey, but not a Muslim republic. Qaddafi might have been a nut case, but he wasn't a rabid jihadist Muslim in the mold of bin Laden. Even though Libya was practically a prison with torturers and spies everywhere, the people of Libya have become accustomed to being a modern country with modern social norms, free from the dictates of imams. It seems unlikely they will embrace the rigid social hierarchy that Al Qaeda has been pushing across the Middle East. And because we provided material help in the battle against Qaddafi, the United States and Europe were finally on the people's side in a war in the Middle East. Even if Libya does melt down, they won't be blaming us for their problems; they'll be pointing their fingers at each other.

In the end George Bush's plan to eliminate Saddam Hussein will have cost us a trillion dollars. Obama eliminated Osama bin Laden and Muammar Qaddafi using techniques that cost us a mere fraction of that price, in both dollars and lives. After a few months and a few billion dollars spent on providing air cover for the Libyan rebels, Qaddafi is gone. Unlike Iraq, we have no presence on the ground and no ongoing expenses for the indefinite future. That's a bargain by any measure.

Some people will say that George Bush's invasion of Iraq paved the way for the Arab Spring. That's balderdash. The invasion strengthened the notion that the Arab people were just pawns in an argument between the Arab world and the west, collateral damage in a contest of wills between two egomaniacs. It made Arabs feel we wanted to destroy them, and much Republican rhetoric reinforces that idea to this day. The good will most of the world showered upon us after 9/11 evaporated when George Bush invaded Iraq based on lies.

The real impetus for the Arab Spring was the suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian who was harassed and humiliated by municipal officials. He inspired Tunisians to turn out their corrupt leaders. That uprising, and the one in Egypt, showed that the people can take power into their own hands. They don't need to wait for the United States to come and save them.

Obama walked a fine line in the Libyan conflict. Had we pushed too hard we would been perceived as taking over another Arab country. But by letting himself be dragged reluctantly into the conflict, Obama allowed the Libyan rebels to maintain their own identity and not be perceived as US puppets.

Libya might not be Obama's victory. But he made all the right calls. And it's good to see a president do that for once.