A Nasty Reality of Our Times

By George Russell

Cairo's chaos heightens concern over the Gaddafi regime

In the shock and upheaval that followed the Sadat assassination, one prime initial suspect as the instigator of the crime was inevitable: Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi. In a closed-door briefing for U.S. Congressmen, Secretary of State Alexander Haig last week noted that the exultant broadcasts of Radio Tripoli hailing the killing were so intense that, in his judgment, they must have been prepared ahead of time. In a rare public moment of harsh sorrow, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger declared on television that if Libya had been "taken care of," Egyptian President Anwar Sadat might still be alive.

As the impact of the Cairo tragedy softened, so did the language. Both Haig and Egyptian officials on closer examination declared that direct Libyan involvement seemed unlikely. But Libyan jubilation over the killing heightened U.S. perceptions of Egypt's next-door neighbor as an outlaw state and an increasingly bothersome trouble spot. Said a U.S. State Department official: "Libya is beginning to rival the Persian Gulf as the focus of strategic concern in the region. Now that Egypt, the only certain counterweight to Libya, is under a cloud, that concern can only increase."

The record of Gaddafi's addiction to international mischief is almost as long as his twelve-year dictatorial reign. As Vice President George Bush put it last week: "He's the world's principal terrorist and trainer of terrorists." Gaddafi has provided funds for the provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army, harbored terrorists from West Germany's Red Army Faction and Japan's Red Army, and backed extremists in the ranks of the Palestine Liberation Organization. While his role in last week's assassination is disparaged, his hand in other, failed plots against Egypt is a certainty. For four days in 1977, Libya and Egypt clashed in a brisk border war.

Through part of Northern Africa, Gaddafi's policy has been one of creeping expansionism, limited only by his narrow base. There are only 3 million Libyans and it already takes 500,000 foreigners to operate his economy. Nonetheless, in December, he frightened French-speaking African countries (and angered France) by rolling his tanks into neighboring Chad, and subsequently announcing the "merger" of the two countries. He has mounted numerous coup attempts against the regime of Sudanese President Gaafar Nimeiri, whose country protects the lifeblood of Egypt, the Nile. Last week the Sudanese government declared that a group of foreigners arrested in Khartoum had been trained in Libya as part of another plot. Gaddafi has stockpiled $12 billion worth of mainly Soviet-supplied military equipment that some analysts fear could be the underpinning for a future Soviet rapid deployment force in the Middle East. Last August two Libyan jets fired upon (and were destroyed) by U.S. F-14 Tomcats over the Gulf of Sidra. Most important, Gaddafi is in the forefront of those Arabs who oppose the Camp David accords. That makes him an automatic opponent of any Egyptian leader, including Hosni Mubarak, who intends to continue Sadat's peace initiative. Says a British analyst: "There is an irrationality in Gaddafi's makeup that defies explanation, and makes it virtually impossible to correctly assess his policies by any normal yardstick."

The frustrations of dealing with such a leader have led to some extreme ideas as a solution. "If someone fired a few bullets at Gaddafi we would all breathe a sigh of relief," said an Israeli official last week.

That is not a course many nations would consider. Certainly not the U.S., which not so long ago suffered through revelations about CIA plots to kill Castro. Says a State Department official: "Assassination as a tool of foreign policy is a repugnant idea to this Administration and to the American people." Quite apart from the moral caveat there is a practical reason for caution: Gaddafi's successor, wherever he is, could well be worse.

Another theoretical possibility is an invasion of Libya by outside forces. Sadat is known to have lamented that he did not seize the chance to do so in the early '70s, before Gaddafi consolidated his hold on power. Now such aggression would court major risks. Attacking Libya from Egypt, for example, would involve a brutal campaign across vast expanses of desert; with their plentiful arms stockpile, Libyans might do better than anyone expected.

Even if Egypt won, other Arab nations like Syria might rally behind Libya in a display of Arab solidarity, thus widening the conflagration.

A tactic much endorsed in some Israeli circles would be an effort at full-scale destabilization of Gaddafi's regime by stirring up trouble in Chad and elsewhere along Libya's borders, meanwhile forming a rival Libyan government-in-exile, based, perhaps, in Egypt. Says a Western expert: "There are plenty of Libyans in exile who previously held important posts in Tripoli and who have been anxious to go back." The trouble is, he continues, that none of them have demonstrated "a capacity to accomplish anything inside Libya." The Reagan Administration has stepped up military aid to Egypt, Tunisia and Sudan, but the assistance is designed for defensive purposes.

More direct confrontation by Western industrialized nations could involve economic sanctions against Libya, including a purchase boycott of its 1.5 million bbl. a day of oil production. With the porous, U.S.-sponsored embargo against Iran as a vivid reminder of failure, the Reagan Administration does not think much of boycotts. Moreover, crude imports from Libya still constitute 12% of U.S. foreign oil consumption; the ratio is higher for West Germany and Italy. Even if all Western nations complied with the boycott, Libya could probably sell its oil to the Soviet Union and other East bloc countries. Despite his anti-imperialist rhetoric, Gaddafi has carefully nurtured his relations with foreign oil companies operating in Libya: even after the Gulf of Sidra incident, none of the 2,000 U.S. oil company workers in the country were molested or abused. Nor did Washington order their evacuation.

In short, there is not much that can be done. One hope in Western chanceries is that the Libyans themselves eventually will tire of Gaddafi, "a nasty reality of our times," as one diplomat calls him. Though the dictator has made careful use of Libya's oil wealth to raise the living standard of his people, there are signs that such a change is possible. Elements of the Libyan middle class are said to be unhappy with Gaddafi's nationalization of many private properties in the name of his mystic Jamahiriya (State of the Masses), and Libyan youngsters are reportedly growing restive under Gaddafi's demand for extensive military service. The West will watch such trends, continue to express its repugnance at Gaddafi, his goals and his methods --and wait. --By George Russell. Reported by Roland Flamini/Cairo and Roberto Suro/Washington

With reporting by Roland Flamini/Cairo, Roberto Suro/Washington

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