0
BAGHDAD: From the United States to al Qaeda, the unanimous loathing for Muammar Qadhafi outweighs the world's feelings for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein when he was ousted eight years ago in a US-led invasion.
“Qadhafi is incomprehensible and illogical, whereas Saddam Hussein was perhaps more cruel,” Ihsan al-Shamari, a university professor in Baghdad, told AFP.
“Saddam's supporters in the Arab world considered him more rational and the context was different because Saddam portrayed himself as a hero of the Arab world” against the United States and Iran, he said.
In fact, never in recent years has a state leader been so widely detested.
For once, the United States, al Qaeda, and Iran, as well as the United Nations and other Western countries, find themselves on the same side in their abhorrence for the Libyan strongman.
When the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1973 on Thursday authorising a no-fly zone and other measures to stop Qadhafi harming civilians in suppressing a revolt, China and Russia abstained instead of using their veto power despite their misgivings.
As a result, a coalition led by the United States, France and Britain launched military operations against Qadhafi on Saturday, reinforced by Arab League approval of a no-fly zone.
When exactly eight years earlier US and British troops invaded Iraq to topple Saddam, who had been in power since 1979, they did so without a UN mandate. That was because of a looming threat of a veto by France.
“We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy,” US President Barack Obama said Saturday to justify military action.
Perhaps few things can be odder than the United States finding itself on the same side of the fence as al Qaeda in their opposition to Qadhafi.
On March 13, Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan considered one of the main theorists of al Qaeda, called on his countrymen to continue their revolt against Qadhafi “without hesitation or fear.” The animosity between Qadhafi and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden dates back to 1996, when the militant group tried to assassinate the Libyan leader near his home city of Sirte.
Neither is there any love lost between Qadhafi and Iran.
Tehran has supported the “legitimate demands” of the rebels against Qadhafi's regime, though Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Sunday his country “doubts” the intentions of the countries taking part in air attacks on Libya.
Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said that although the Iraqi and Libyan dictators had both slaughtered their own people, they were perceived differently in the Arab world.
“Saddam had a lot of support in the region. Even though the Arabs did not savour that he massacred his people, he was considered a main Arab leader in a main Arab country, and was powerful,” he told AFP.
In 1991, Saddam launched a crackdown against a Kurdish uprising in the north and a Shiite revolt in the south, leaving tens of thousands dead. The US, Britain and France decided to establish no-fly zones in the north and south, though without UN authorisation.
“Qadhafi has been seen for some time as an oddball, a madman. There are no Qadhafi supporters in the Arab world,” Salem said.
“When he began killing his own people it was not hard to say 'someone has to stop him,'” he added.
In 2003, Iran and the Arab League – with the exception of Kuwait – condemned the Iraq invasion.
The main difference between 2003 and 2011 is the immediate threat to Libyan civilians, said Ali al-Saffar, an analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit in London.
“There was no compelling reason to invade Iraq,” he said. “If Saddam had shelled Iraqi villages like Qadhafi has done, the situation would have been different,” Saffar said.
The opposition to Qadhafi is stronger among Shias than Sunni Muslims.
Shias accuse Qadhafi of being behind the disappearance of Lebanese Shia leader Musa al-Sadr, who vanished during a 1978 visit to Libya.
