International Ambitions

Abstract

Libya’s foreign policy derives from the views and philosophy of one man. There are various state organisations through which international policy matters are conducted but the ultimate decisionmaking is Gaddafi’s alone. A change in outlook and emphasis over the years can be detected but Libya’s international posture continues to derive from an ideology that has been articulated many times. It has been necessary for Gaddafi to make pragmatic and prudent accommodations with many groups, companies and nations that, in the next breath, he may violently condemn. At one time or another he has antagonised African states, most of the Arab world, and the whole of the West. However, this undoubted circumstance needs to be examined with care. Libya’s relative isolation in the modern world can be attributed in part to the mercurial and radical temper of its leader, a man prepared to use violence to achieve his goals; but Libya’s status as a pariah nation derives equally from the resentment among powerful states that any small country should dare to challenge an international order that upholds the exploitation of the weak by the strong, and that tolerates levels of violence — sometimes reaching genocidal proportions — in defence of that order.

By the passage of time, everyone changes, through experience. In the 1970s we supported liberal movements without knowing which were terrorists and which were not. In the 1980s we began to differentiate between terrorists and those with legitimate political aspirations.

Muammar al-Gaddafi, 1992