If Qaddafi Isn’t Safe, No One Is Safe

I was almost certain we wouldn’t see much, if any, upheaval in Libya, and even wrote less than a week ago that only the very brave or the very stupid would dare stand up to Muammar Qaddafi’s totalitarian system. As Michael Rubin has pointed out, no country on earth aside from North Korea (and I’d add the possible exception of Turkmenistan) is more oppressive than the vast Libyan dungeon. Even Bashar al-Assad’s Arab Socialist Baath Party state is lax by comparison.

So it’s rather extraordinary that the Arab revolt has broken out in Qaddafi-land. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.

Hardly anyone in Libya could imagine standing up to, let alone overthrowing, Qaddafi just a few weeks ago, but Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak turned out to be much more vulnerable than anybody expected. They seemed to be pushed out of power so easily. It’s not true that if they can be overthrown that anyone can be overthrown, but the invincibility of the Arab police states has nevertheless been proved a myth. The fear that so grips the hearts of the Middle East’s peoples is breaking.

Read the rest in Commentary Magazine.