1. Col. Qaddafi’s Libya as enfant terrible in international politics: 1969 – 2007

Since 1969 when Col. Muammar Qaddafi (or Gaddafi) has taken power in Libya and begun to build a Jamahiriya (in his political theory it is political regime where masses play the main role, also Jamahiriya is the “third way” – neither communism nor Western democracy) he was a source of problems and difficult situations for Libyan neighbors and for the West.

Firstly, Qaddafi tried to unite Libya with other Arab states such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan or Syria in the Arab national state. His ambitious efforts didn’t end in success due to many reasons including Qaddafi’s aid for radical opposition forces in these states. Soon he damaged relations with Egypt and in summer 1977 there was war between Libya and Egypt.

Then Col. Qaddafi interfered in the Ugandan – Tanzanian war of 1978 – 1979 in the side of Uganda. At the same time he unleashed war with Chad which continued to 1987. Also Libyan government began to encourage Tuareg tribes in their fight for the establishing of Azaouad state primary in the territories of Mali and Niger.

Moreover M. Qaddafi announced the struggle against the West and Israel and sponsored some terrorist attacks in 1970s – 1980s. Qaddafi’s activity forced the United States to include his regime in the list of terrorists and then to bomb Libya in 1986. But it didn’t stop the Libyan dictator and in 1988 his secret service organized the explosion of American Boeing-747 above Lockerbie town. It was the most famous and awful attack of Qaddafi’s regime but not the last: the same attack against flight from Congo to France was in the sky of Niger in 1992. So, the UN used the sanctions against Libya after all in early 1990s.

The case is that the Soviet Union used Libya in its policy and intelligence deals in the Middle East and in Africa and blenched such “specifics” of Col. Qaddafi’s approach in foreign policy. But status quo has changed after 1991 when Libya became a full-rate rouge or pariah state and needed rehabilitation in international affairs.

M. Qaddafi decided on the carrot and stick. Libya began to pay compensations for the families of Lockerbie and Niger victims in 1999; moreover it extradited two agents of Libyan secret service which were accessorial to those attacks. As a result sanctions were annulled in 2003. At the same time Qaddafi tried to press on European leaders through the hostages: in 1999 Libyan authority arraigned five Bulgarian nurses in deliberate infection of Libyan children by HIV and received them into prison. In fact Col. Qaddafi exchanged nurses on the monetary aid from the EU and cooperation with leading European states (mainly France, Britain and Italy) in 2007.

The particular case is the Libyan weapons of mass destruction (WMD) development program. Its history counted decades and Libya was a customer of the A.Q. Khan illegal network for supplying of nuclear weapon technologies and materials (worked from early 1980s to 2004) but M. Qaddafi officially abandoned from developing of any kinds of WMD in 2003. It was a part of his carrot and stick approach.

So, we can speak, he achieved the goal of rehabilitation but there was no new foreign agenda in Libya after 2007 except chimerical reclamations on the leadership in all Africa.