"People Power" Reaches Libya--Yawn

There has been a brief bit of hyperventilating in the global MSM over a microscopic demonstration in Libya's number two city, Benghazi, yesterday.  The crowd was small.  The response overwhelming.  And, the body count seems impressive only in its nonexistence.

Far larger were the rent-a-supporter counterdemonstrations in Tripoli.  The outpouring of "spontaneous" support and affection for The Leader (as aging one time drug user and full time humanitarian Gaddafi is now known) was predictable.  At the same time The Leader has been making something of a show over his "concern" for the grievances of "his" people.  The roster of complaints centers on housing and jobs with the notions of liberty and political reform being conspicuously absent.  Be that as it may, the state media have been quick to portray the saggy jowled Leader looking both grave and concerned as he listened to the well-rehearsed litany of problems.

Whether anything will come of the meetings is, of course, debatable.  There is no real need for The Leader to actually do anything.  His hold on power is secure.  In the main his status is predicated on a complex system of bought and paid for alliances between The Leader and the assorted tribes which constitute the majority of the Libyan population.  The largess spread over the years from Libya's oil exports has gone a long way to securing the loyalty of the traditionally fractious tribes.

In addition, the regime is well served by a large, well trained, and equipped internal security force structure upon which any amount of money has been lavished.  The internal security personnel are everywhere and keep a close eye on everyone--including each other.  In addition, the army is loyal albeit somewhat irrelevant given its deterioration in recent years.

The personal security felt by The Leader has been underscored by his agreement to release some 110 convicted advocates of violent political Islam.  The details of the release were worked out by The Leader's son, Saif.  The former members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group have all rejected violence and denounced al-Qaeda which was their one time role model.  The hints of discontent, even the Benghazi demonstration, did nothing to derail the deal which purportedly was agreed to by The Leader a few weeks back.

A bit of anxiety must be touching the superannuated dictator however given his recent exhortations to Arabs generally to put aside mere domestic politics in favor of a mass march on Israel.  This call for a non-violent challenge to the borders of Israel is redolent of the tried and true tactic of displacing internal unrest on an outside target.  Still, the speech seems to have been a one off effort without any subsequent reinforcement either by The Leader or any in his regime or media.

Gaddafi is much perceived in the West as the epitome of pure zany.  As a consequence he is often underrated in his primary task--keeping power in Libya.  Even though his foreign policy has been marked by mounds of disastrous blunder, it has also shown shrewed moments of enlightened self-interest as in the decision to give up nuclear and other WMD oriented development projects.  At home he has made few missteps even though his domestic presentations have been marked with the same exercises in grandiosity as his foreign escapades.

However, Gaddafi is aging and aging fast.  A succession looms.  Perhaps even a succession crisis.  While the notion of a family dynasty is not unheard of in Arab societies, there will be problems should The Leader hope simply to pass the baton to his son.  Chief among the problems is the economy of Libya.  With the sole exception of primary resource extraction, there is no real base for the national economy.  Nor has The Leader used any significant percentage of his sovereign wealth to provide any alternatives for the oil wells.

Reinforcing this problem is that Libya in common with all Arab and most Muslim countries has experienced a population boom which has skewed the demographics significantly.  Thus, Libya shares the problem of a very large, very young population without sufficient employment opportunities.  As was the case in neighboring Tunisia, this has been exacerbated by assuring useless advanced education for a high percentage of the young men.  And, there is no more disquieting disaffected group than young men with too much education, too lofty ambitions, and too few real opportunities to pursue the ambitions and use the education.

Because so much of the contemporary order in Libya is predicated upon personal loyalties linking tribal chiefs and The Leader, there is no assurance these loyalties will transfer to the designated successor.  At the same time, the lack of perceived functional legitimacy which pervades the urban, educated youth will go to undercut any peaceful transition of authority from father to son.  Indeed, the talk of a family dynasty is already showing some of the same provocative effects in Tripoli and Benghazi which the same sort of chatter did weeks and months ago in Egypt.

This implies that The Leader had best focus on his own mortality.  Unless he makes and executes meaningful changes in policy particularly as regards the economy and employment, there is a very high likelihood that any transition of power will be ugly at best and the starting gun of genuine revolution at worst.  The Gaddafi regime may be able to dodge the bullet of regime change for now, but the day that Gaddafi's death appears imminent, all that will change, dramatically.

Alternately reading from his own Green Book and the Koran has worked well for Gaddafi over the past forty plus years.  And continuing to do so is critical for keeping order in his declining years.  But, if he actually harbors any idea of the "Libyan Revolution of 1969" surviving the death of its architect, The Leader has to address the fundamental problems of economic reform and employment generation right now and with the most serious of intent.

It behooves the West to work with the irritating Gaddafi in this direction.  Even if there were no other consideration, it must be remembered the forces of violent political Islam are merely quiescent in Libya.  The appeal of that ideology particularly for disaffected young men has not lessened.  Whether any of us like the idea or not, the countries of the West--including the US--have an involuntary camel in the Gaddafi herd.