Qadhafi's departure

Libya's Colonel Muammar Qadhafi has been Africa's and the Arab world's longest ruling, most erratic and most grimly fascinating leader. His son Saif al-Islam put up a brief presence before the international media Monday night in Tripoli belying rebels' claim that he was in detention.
But that's hardly an indication that the colonel's regime is going to last any longer; it is only a matter of time and he would be gone forever from Libya he ruled 42-long years, in the beginning as a liberator and then as a tyrant, presiding over his country for 42 years with vast oil reserves and just 6 million people.
How the sporadic resistance put up by the Qadhafi loyalists would end and if the rebels can do it on their own in the absence of air cover provided by Nato given that bombing the city can cause large casualties, the picture remained no longer unclear when Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, who was addressing a joint press conference with Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the leader of the National Transitional Council, in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi on Tuesday, says that Nato will continue its military campaign in Libya until full security is established in the nation.
May be the Special Forces on the ground in Libya provided by some of the Nato countries undertake the final assault on the Qadhafi compound. But then what next? Is the Transitional National Council sufficiently organised to put on ground an effective interim government, that's a big question in that on its own the rebels couldn't have wrested Libya from the hands of one of the modern history's most durable dictators. Also there is the question how Libya would escape chaos and anarchy once it has been liberated with the help of foreign forces, not forgetting the lingering instability that continues to haunt Iraq and Afghanistan which too were 'liberated' with outside help.
In Libya where Colonel Qadhafi had imposed his political system, called a Jamahiriya, and where society still retains its tribal democracy striking roots would not be that easy. But such a perception cannot be allowed to belittle the victory of Libyan rebel forces. In Tunis and Egypt the despotic regimes had fallen much more easily for the little resistance put up by the armed forces or the regimes' loyalist paramilitaries that dictators raise for personal protection.
But Libya proved to be a different cup of tea, as here the forces' loyalty with Colonel Qadhafi remained intact till last. But for the massive Nato bombing and on-ground assistance with trainers in the use of modern weapons and real-time intelligence the rebels had no chance. With less than six million people scattered over a vast desert, the stronghold of tribalism and the relatively prosperous population the Libyan political situation was qualitatively different from what obtained in congested but politically awake Tunis and politically astute Egypt.
Then it was also the Muammar Qadhafi's assiduously built image as the modern day Omar al-Mukhtar who had resisted against colonialism that greatly endeared him to his people. Qadhafi took power in 1969 from an aging King Idris in a bloodless coup at the age of 27, and had for a very long time kept the ordinary masses mesmerised by his speeches inspired by Gamal Abdel Nasser. But with the passage of time absolute power corrupted him as in the late 1970s and 1980s he took upon himself the unenviable task of promoting international terrorism, the most notorious of it being the Lockerbie crash. From then on he started losing international legitimacy.
However, it is still a moot point whether the rebel forces are home-grown and provoked into action against Colonel Qadhafi to vindicate the grievances of the Libyan people, or if they are foreign-based Arab expatriates who want their countries to be run as modern democratic society.
In the wake of political upheavals the Arab Spring has triggered, there are clear signs indicating that governments in Western Europe and North America have now in their fellowship the desired strength of supporters who can be effectively deployed on ground to launch revolutionary changes in the Middle East and elsewhere.
That the United Nations appears ready to grant mandate to such combinations for military interventions it's indeed a new development and should be of interest to, and scrutiny by, a number of countries including Pakistan that too has a large expatriate population in the Nato countries. That however is no reason that we would grieve about the demise of Qadhafi regime.
In fact, its opposite in quite likely, in that Pakistan's nuclear programme took its gravest hostile propaganda hit when the then president, Pervez Musharraf, if not wittingly, played into the American hands following a report supplied by the Qadhafi regime when the latter announced its intention to renounce weapons of mass destruction in December 2003. Undoubtedly, his departure from the scene is bound to strengthen democratic credentials of the Arab nation for it would give the much-needed boost to the democratic forces in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East.