The bizarre, reckless rise and fall of Muammar Gaddafi
Have you ever met someone like this? Crude-mouthed, meddlesome, loathed by everyone around him. Greedy for every bite of food, useless at every task. The words “asking for a beating” practically stamped on his forehead, “courting disaster” squeezed between his teeth. Every fibre of him, from throat to groin, radiates an insufferable, grating aura.
If you have crossed paths with such a person, my condolences. If you have not, consider yourself warned — you are about to meet one now. His name is Muammar Gaddafi.
Let me introduce him to you: the final form of Albania’s Hoxha, the philosophical brother of the Soviet Union’s Brezhnev, steel ally of Uganda’s Amin, loudmouth confederate of Argentina’s Galtieri, leader of Arab leaders, king of African kings, headmaster of Islamic headmasters, and head of state whose highest military rank never rose above colonel — Omar Muammar Gaddafi.
Gaddafi was born in 1942 in a small desert tribe south of Sirte, Libya. Libya sits in North Africa, spanning 1.76 million square kilometres. A country of this size ought to carry some global weight, yet like many other North African nations, most of its territory is desert. Its population remains barely over six million to this day.
Accounts of his family background vary. Some say his parents rented out camels for work; others describe them as herders. Whether they worked in primary or informal service trades, one thing was certain: they had very little money. Poor as they were, the family valued education, at least for him. He finished primary school locally, then moved to Misrata for secondary school, and later enrolled at university in Benghazi, first studying history before switching to military training. He enlisted in 1963.
This resume looks unremarkable on the surface, yet it hid unusual traits. He read widely and spoke with persuasive flair. Even though he came from poverty, his classmates looked up to him as their leader. His followers carried small folding stools, ready at any moment for him to deliver a speech. More remarkably, he organised this circle of followers into a structured group, an informal “Gaddafi student fraternity”. Inside this group, he laid out clear chains of command and ruled that members from different cells must not contact one another privately. He had a natural knack for cult-like organisation.
Young Gaddafi was an idealist. His university education put him far ahead of most ordinary Libyans. While still in secondary school, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s revolution toppled Egypt’s Farouk dynasty, and the event left a deep impression on him. Nasser remained his lifelong idol. That is why Gaddafi never promoted himself beyond colonel — Nasser’s rank was colonel.
Libya had little natural ground for revolution. It was not a modern state so much as a patchwork of tribes: petty rulers bloomed briefly everywhere, and the state itself was an empty shell. After the Second World War, propped up by Britain and the United States, the country had almost nothing but sand. Then, in 1959, vast reserves of high-quality crude oil were discovered, and overnight, Libya struck wealth.
Yet as oil revenues poured in, the political rot became obvious. King Idris I was old and feeble, unable to negotiate better terms with Western oil firms. Most oil profits flowed to British and American corporations. The small share left inside Libya was hoarded almost entirely by the royal family and their allied tribes, and social tensions simmered.
Gaddafi was only a second lieutenant in the army, but he thought on a grand scale. He founded a secret faction within the military: the Free Officers Movement. With rival factions stirring across Libya, the Free Officers plotted rebellion. In 1969, Gaddafi and his fellow officers resolved to overthrow the Idris monarchy.
How to sum up their coup attempt? If a screenwriter wrote this plot, audiences would call it absurd.
The original date was delayed. Why? On 21 March, the legendary Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum held a concert in Benghazi. She was the Arab world’s superstar, its equivalent of Madonna. Gaddafi and his fellow soldiers reached a unanimous decision: before staging their uprising, they would attend the show first. The revolution was put on hold so they could cheer her on.
This sounds bizarre elsewhere, but Africa runs by its own logic — its only constant is unpredictability. Gaddafi pushed the coup back six months, until September.
On 1 September 1969, under a dark, moonless night, Gaddafi moved. His plan was deceptively simple: seize the radio station and military barracks in Tripoli. A straightforward plan like this should have been easy to execute cleanly. Instead, Gaddafi and his comrades turned it into a catalogue of blunders.
Take the Tripoli team first. Gaddafi stayed in Benghazi. The day before the coup, he sent his aide al-Mihayshi to Tripoli to secure the barracks. Al-Mihayshi arrived at Benghazi airport and discovered he had missed his scheduled flight. The next flight was fully booked. Fortunately, an airport contact helped him board as a standee, and he made it to Tripoli.
Once there, he hailed a taxi to the barracks. Overcome by nervous excitement, he climbed out at the destination and left his firearms and revolutionary documents behind in the cab. He walked into the barracks unarmed.
Across Tripoli, Gaddafi’s loyalist Garoud led six hundred soldiers to take control of air defence units. At muster, they counted only 1,050 rounds of ammunition in total, barely two bullets per man. As he set out to link up with his unit, two military police stopped him and asked for help fixing a motorcycle. Afraid of drawing attention, Gaddafi spent hours helping them repair it before he could slip away.
He finally joined his troops and set off before dawn. Soon they hit their biggest problem: nobody could find the Benghazi radio station. Witnesses recalled that the streets were pitch black, with no streetlights at all. Gaddafi led his column wandering through Benghazi like a gang of organised loiterers.
Ten years after Libya’s oil discovery, its second-largest city still lacked basic street lighting. I have sometimes wondered if the old king had a clever ploy. In the 1960s, revolutionary fires swept across the region. Perhaps Idris figured: no streetlights, no easy coup. The darkness certainly worked in Gaddafi’s favour, and his disadvantage.
After wandering for ages, he found the radio building, only to discover his main force had got lost and fallen far behind. He stood before the station alone. Since he had come all that way, he decided to storm the place single-handedly. The sentry spotted him, yet simply let him pass. To the guard, he looked like just another army officer reporting for entry. Gaddafi walked straight into the broadcast booth, drew his gun, and announced his takeover. The staff offered no resistance. They calmly adjusted the equipment so he could deliver his victory speech.
In Tripoli, the rebels had almost no firepower, yet the government put up zero fight. The king was abroad. Prince Hasan, the acting authority, was dead drunk and took no action at all.
At 6:30 a.m., Gaddafi went on air to proclaim the new regime. Even as he spoke, he could barely believe he had succeeded. Fearful of reprisals, he did not give his name during the address. He had not even prepared a script. If this was a lie, he lied from day one. If it was true, after years of plotting, such chaos spoke volumes about his judgement. That was Gaddafi’s revolution, the feat he would boast about for decades: a regime won almost by accident.
The United States had already kept an eye on Gaddafi before he seized power. The Idris dynasty leaned toward Britain, which frustrated Washington. The US quietly gave him some backing before the coup. But America overlooked one defining trait of Gaddafi: he turned on every patron.
The young lieutenant had climbed the ranks by courting and marrying the daughter of General Khalid, his superior. That marriage helped him build connections despite his low rank. Once the general had no more use for him, Gaddafi divorced his wife without hesitation. If he treated his father-in-law this way, the United States could expect no better.
When he took power in 1969, Gaddafi promised to respect foreign firms and safeguard overseas assets. Britain and the US thought he was cooperative. They did not obstruct him; they helped build infrastructure and extended loans. His goodwill lasted less than a year. In 1970, he shut down the US airbase. In 1972, he scrapped all cooperation agreements with Washington. In 1973, he nationalised a 51 per cent stake in American oil companies operating in Libya.
In the long run, reclaiming oil wealth benefited Libya. At the time, observers held their breath, certain the US would retaliate. Yet beyond verbal condemnation, Washington did nothing. Gaddafi had found another powerful patron: Leonid Brezhnev’s Soviet Union.
Libya and the USSR forged close ties. Brezhnev valued the relationship deeply. During the Cold War, most Soviet allies drained Moscow’s treasury. Gaddafi was different: he was rich. He bought Soviet arms on a staggering scale, including air defence systems for eighteen brigades. He was one of the few Soviet clients who paid generously. Total arms purchases from the USSR eventually reached roughly 10 billion US dollars.
Because of Libya’s oil money, Brezhnev indulged Gaddafi’s whims. One night in early 1978, Soviet air defence radar picked up an unannounced Libyan aircraft entering Soviet airspace. Soviet controllers contacted the plane and were told: this is Gaddafi’s private jet, here to see Brezhnev on urgent business. Soviet officials scrambled to arrange a reception at the airport.
The jet touched down in Moscow in the frigid early hours. The cabin door opened, but Gaddafi did not step out. An aide leaned out to speak. Brezhnev was born in 1906, Gaddafi in 1942; Brezhnev was old enough to be his grandfather, yet Gaddafi insisted on treating him as an equal brother. Soviet diplomats explained that, without prior notice, Brezhnev could not come to the tarmac, and their meeting would be scheduled for the next day.
The aide said nothing, slammed the cabin door, and vanished. The plane did not leave. It sat idle on the apron. Soviet diplomats stood in the bitter cold, breathing jet exhaust, for two full hours. Staff from the Libyan embassy kept delivering Georgian mineral water to the aircraft. Once the water supply ran out, Gaddafi’s plane took off and flew straight home.
Wild as this story sounds, it was far from the strangest episode in Gaddafi’s diplomatic career.
In 1981, Gaddafi made an official visit to the USSR. Brezhnev laid on a grand welcome. One day, the schedule called for a tour of military facilities and arms talks. Soviet diplomats waited outside his hotel, but Gaddafi dragged his feet. When he finally emerged, he glanced at the sky and declared: under Arab custom, he would not go out unless three stars were visible. The day’s programme was cancelled.
The Soviet diplomats, seasoned negotiators, asked what he wanted to do instead. Gaddafi said he wished to witness a Muslim funeral. Even they were stunned. They replied they could not arrange one from scratch. Gaddafi insisted. The KGB searched frantically, and Soviet authorities arranged a full, formal funeral service for him. Once there, Gaddafi criticised the imam for conducting the ritual incorrectly. The imam invited him to lead it himself. Gaddafi refused, then asked to visit the bereaved family, a request that was turned down.
His diplomatic style was equally erratic with every nation, including China. As early as the 1970s, Libyan envoys arrived in Beijing with arrogant attitudes, and China rejected their overtures. In 1982, Gaddafi made his only trip to China. He refused to share his itinerary or the list of his delegation, throwing Chinese preparations into disarray. Once in the country, he ignored all proposed cooperation projects. He cared for only one thing: buying nuclear weapons. Late one night, he demanded a birthday party for his female bodyguards. Chefs at Diaoyutai worked through the night to prepare food, exhausted by the order. The visit produced no agreements. Gaddafi thought China was too weak, and saw no value in engagement beyond nuclear technology.
Many world leaders have had theatrical diplomatic quirks: Khrushchev banging his shoe, Tito with his cigarettes. But those gestures served calculated goals, and only great powers could afford such theatre. Gaddafi’s antics, both domestic and foreign, stemmed from wildly misplaced confidence, out of all proportion to Libya’s standing.
Some praise Gaddafi, arguing he turned a poor nation into a high-income state with free education and healthcare. That argument ignores reality. Libya’s prosperity came from oil, not his leadership. For decades, his reckless adventures turned a country that could have quietly prospered as an oil exporter into a failed state.
Gaddafi favoured green, the colour of Islam. Under him, green was more than a colour in Libya; it was style, identity, hope. The German government released white papers; Libya’s manifesto was The Green Book. He simplified Libya’s flag until it became a solid plain green banner, the simplest national flag in the world.
He claimed to live plainly, preferring tents to buildings. Wherever he travelled, he camped in a tent. For the 2009 UN General Assembly session, the Libyan mission rented a large plot of land in New York just to pitch his tent.
While he preached frugality, the Gaddafi family became Libya’s richest clan, monopolising oil, hotels, airlines and other key sectors, with assets worth billions. In his later years, Western sanctions crippled the economy, and unemployment lingered above thirty per cent. Ordinary Libyans were not blind. They did not rise up for no reason.
Domestic repression was only half of it. Gaddafi spent decades exporting instability. He sent troops into the Uganda–Tanzania War and was defeated. He invaded Chad, where his forces tangled with Chadian fighters in pickup trucks. To sum up his military record: a lifetime of campaigning, never a decisive victory.
Early in his career, he pushed hard for a union between Egypt and Libya, pitching the idea first to Nasser, then to Anwar Sadat. Egypt turned him down each time. After the Yom Kippur War, Egypt accepted it could not defeat Israel and sought the return of the Sinai Peninsula through diplomacy. Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
The deal shook the Arab world. Most Arab states cut ties with Cairo, and Egypt lost its status as the undisputed Arab leader. Gaddafi saw his opening. From then on, he rushed to speak first on every Arab issue, yet few followed his lead.
Finding little traction among Arabs, he turned toward Africa. He championed pan-African unity. In 2005, he spoke of Condoleezza Rice: “I love her, I admire her. She is an African daughter, and I am proud of her.” He sent her a diamond ring and his portrait, inviting her to a private dinner. After his regime fell, investigators found an album at his compound titled My Dear, filled with such mementos.
His pan-African campaign had some impact. He contributed to the formation of the African Union. Once the AU was established, Gaddafi floated bold proposals: a united African republic, a continental army, an end to the CFA franc. He gathered more than two hundred African chiefs and had himself crowned King of Kings of Africa. These moves directly challenged French interests on the continent.
By then, Britain and the United States already counted him as an enemy. Gaddafi was linked to the 1986 West Berlin discotheque bombing that killed two US service members and wounded hundreds. He was blamed for the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, which killed 270 people. In Britain, his agents bombed shops selling anti-Gaddafi publications. During the Falklands War, he voiced full support for Galtieri, though he offered no tangible aid.
Ronald Reagan famously called him the “mad dog of Africa”. The US and UK launched two large air raids aimed at killing him, without success. Some hail Gaddafi as an anti-American hero. Attacks targeting civilians are hardly heroic. Even his anti-American stance was inconsistent.
Saddam Hussein’s overthrow in 2003 terrified Gaddafi. He announced Libya would abandon programmes for weapons of mass destruction and accept inspections. He paid compensation to victims of the Lockerbie bombing, opened oil fields to Western firms, and made concessions. To prove his new pro-Western tilt, he broke with Russia and publicly backed Chechen independence.
His concessions brought partial relief from sanctions. The US temporarily removed Libya from its sanctions list. Yet Gaddafi’s core instincts never changed. He backed down, but he never stopped provoking. His diplomatic mantra: lost every fight, won every shouting match.
He took the French president to visit the ruins of US airstrikes. He stuck his feet out and farted deliberately in front of the British prime minister during meetings. On a visit to Italy, he pinned photographs of Italy’s persecution of Libyan national heroes to his chest. Diplomacy was meant for negotiation; Gaddafi turned it into a stage to humiliate foreign leaders.
In 2009, Britain released Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, who was dying of cancer on humanitarian grounds. The UK asked Libya to handle the return discreetly, out of respect for victims’ families. Instead, Gaddafi and his son welcomed Megrahi at the airport before a huge crowd, celebrating him as a national hero. The uproar in Britain was immense, and the British government faced heavy criticism.
That same year, Gaddafi attended the UN General Assembly for the first time. Ignoring the speaking time limit, he ranted for more than ninety minutes, until interpreters walked off mid-session. He called the UN a hollow tool for the permanent Security Council members, and suggested renaming it the “Council of Terror”. He theatrically threatened to tear up the UN Charter, tossing it aside. It became one of the most infamous moments in UN history. Parts of his critique held truth: the UN is not an easy platform for small nations to be heard.
At home, he ruled with brutal repression. He ordered public hangings of student dissidents. In one incident, up to 1,200 prisoners were killed over three hours. Libya’s middle class and intellectuals fled abroad in large numbers, forming exile opposition groups. His embassy personnel opened fire on protestors, killing and wounding civilians including a British police officer. Gaddafi seemed blind to the cost of his cruelty.
In 2011, the Arab Spring reached Libya, and civil war erupted. UN Security Council Resolution 1973 imposed a no-fly zone. All fifteen council members voted for it, with no dissenting votes. The rest is Gaddafi’s end.
On 20 October 2011, Sirte, the last stronghold of his regime, fell to rebel fighters. Gaddafi was dragged out of a drainage pipe. He endured hours of abuse before being shot dead. His son Mutassim died alongside him.
After his death, many called Gaddafi a formidable warlord. It is hard to see what earned him that title beyond endless chaos. He seized power by accident and ruled for forty years with no grand statesmanship. That drainage pipe in Sirte closed the chapter on his absurd life.
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