THE LIBYA CASE

The Libya Case

The Libya Case

Introduction

The Libyan case study suggests that popular hatred of the United States was not profoundly ingrained sufficient to obstruct the political leadership from sharply shifting course in its foreign principle toward the United States. It also points to the political leadership's ability to make such a transformation, though a transformation is reliant on a number of factors, encompassing the grade of pragmatism inside the leadership, the span of the gap between the leadership and the public, and related international and regional development issues. The more pragmatic the political leadership, and the broader the gap between the leadership and the persons, the easier it becomes for the leadership to insert radical foreign principle changes. Additionally, if the leader views international and regional developments as detrimental to national interest, the leader is more prone to insert fundamental foreign principle changes.

Discussion

Libya's strained relations with the West began shortly after September of 1969, when the 27 years vintage Mu'ammar el-Qaddafi, seized power toppling the conservative monarchy of King Idris. As juvenile revolutionary, el-Qaddafi had ambitions to assume the leadership position in the Arab world one time held by late Egyptian President and Arab nationalist Gamal abdel Nassar (1954-1970), which directed him to direct his anger at what he seen as “Western injustice”, and blaming the West for the Arab world's problems. Libya also supplied terrorist groups all through the world with cash and arms; on peak of them was the PLO, which was regarded by all Arab countries as liberation action (p. 383). Libya's policies as revolutionary state was similar to other revolutionary regimes in the Middle East like Egypt's Nasser, Iran, and Iraq, which traditionally antagonized Western interests in the district and allied themselves with terrorist groups they considered liberation movements.

However, in mid 1970s, Qaddafi's support for global transformation and terrorism became more apparent (Cooley, p.84), farther straining its relations with the West, in particular the United States. On April 15, 1973, at the peak of the Arab-Israeli confrontation, Qaddafi attempted to sink the ship Queen Elizabeth II, which had many Jewish Americans on board. Furthermore, the US and its European allies were greatly worried by Qaddafi's apparent reversal of attitudes toward the Soviet Union since 1974. Qaddafi also took a series of decisions that would increase Libyan command over the foreign oil companies, and by mid-1974 Libya controlled about 2/3 of its production.

In the 1980s, Libya's support of international terrorism broadened, and in 1986 the US attacked Libya for its engagement in the bombing of Berlin disco murdering two US servicemen. Libya responded by the 1988 and 1989 terrorist attacks against Pan Am and French UTA respectively, murdering hundreds of civilians from distinct countries. Furthermore, Qaddafi has made it renowned that his next ambition is to make Libya the first Arab nuclear power. Libya sought but failed to purchase nuclear blasting apparatus from China, and arranged to share in the efforts and proceeds of the Pakistani nuclear program by financing the Pakistani nuclear ...