Muammar Qaddafi seems to be the next dictator on his way out the door.
What are the chances of a revolutionary-leader-turned-ruthless despot remaining in office for life these days?
Not very high, it seems. With the possible exception of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, it looks like only a short few decades after you violently install yourself as the head of a country, you’re bound to be uninstalled by practically the same means you used to come to power.
Didn’t ousted dictators Zeineddine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak, and hopefully soon-to-be-deposed Muammar Qaddafi, all rise to power in their countries via a military coup? The last time those three North African autocrats saw a takeover, they were on the winning side of it.
All three stormed into office touting reform, people power, and the rule of the right and good. Then all of them became drunk with power, as perpetual rulers always do, and set up autocratic police states where all the money and power was concentrated in the hands of a few.
Ben Ali and Mubarak fell pretty swiftly after the rebellions in their countries started, the latter putting up only a brief fight before seeking the welcoming embrace of one of the dictator-friendly Gulf States.
Qaddafi, however, has shown a terrifying willingness to decimate his opponents, unfettered by any desire to hold onto the friendly terms he recently regained from the West.
Qaddafi has vowed to stay in office until his “last drop of blood,” and it seems his people are very much willing to help drain him of every last globule. Whether he gets deposed or killed by his own people remains to be seen, but surely he must have known it was coming. After all, being a dictator is a pretty high-risk job; these days it seems they have about the same chances of staying a lifetime in power as plot of empty land has of going undeveloped in Beirut.
Sunny Beirut 