In 1977, Muammar Gaddafi, the self-styled king of kings, turned Libya into the Great Jamahiriya or the State of the Masses. More than three decades later, the Great Dictator himself was hounded by the masses and mercilessly killed in broad daylight, despite his plangent cries for clemency. There is a scathing irony in the decline and fall of Gaddafi. After all, it was Gaddafi who single-handedly put Libya on the geopolitical map. In spite of his whimsical economic policies, at one time during his regime, Libyans enjoyed an enviable standard of living, thanks to the billions that flowed into the oil-rich nation. And in spite of his later shift of allegiance to Africa, Gaddafi had begun with dreams of pan-Arabic nationalism that were jilted over the years as the rest of the Arab world dithered in its attitude to the West. Only Gaddafi held on to an anti-West agenda more or less consistently, as his agents played havoc in the Western world. The Lockerbie bombings in 1988, one of the most staggering acts of terrorism pre-9/11, led to sanctions being imposed on Libya. In the last ten years, friendly overtures were made by the former British prime minister, Tony Blair, towards Gaddafi, who, in turn, agreed to help in the Lockerbie trials. And then the Arab Spring happened.
