Barry Rubin: What Gaddafi’s Death Teaches the Middle East…And Should Teach the West

What Gaddafi’s Death Teaches the Middle East…And Should Teach the West

By Barry Rubin

What can we learn from the death of Libyan dictator Moammar Qadhafi? First, we should note that he is the second Arab dictator to die in the last decade, the first being the Iraqi Saddam Hussein. Both met their demise due to direct Western intervention.

There are three lessons for the region:

1. To get rid of a dictator, you need either Western intervention or the support of the armed forces.

Consider this simple list:

Dictatorships overthrown with Western forces taking the lead: Iraq, Libya

Dictatorships overthrown with the backing of the army: Egypt, Tunisia

Failed revolutions when these two factors are lacking: Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen.

That shows that it is not popular revolt that changes things in the region.

Dictators must fight or die and concessions don’t help.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, to be published by Yale University Press in January 2012. You can read more of Barry Rubin's posts at Rubin Reports, and now on his new blog, Rubin Reports, on Pajamas Media

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