A lot of Westerners see Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi as a defanged relic of the 1980s — a man who used to cause a lot of trouble, was pacified by Reagan’s bombing, and later gave up his terrorist ambitions. This is partially true, but while Qaddafi may have given up on his violent Islamist revolution, he has not given up his egomaniacal quest to become a power player on the world stage — and last week he made a play to cement himself as leader of an entire continent.
In many ways, Qaddafi is stronger now than he ever was in the Reagan era. Instead of pursuing conquest militarily, he has decided to pursue power positions in international organizations such as the United Nations and the African Union (AU). Last year, he scored a major victory by winning the chairmanship of the AU, which in his mind made him the leader of all Africa. He even used his position to promote the merger of all African countries into “The United States of Africa.”
