# Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) ruled [[Libya]] for 42 years, from a 1969 military coup until he was overthrown and killed during the [[Arab Spring]] in 2011. An idiosyncratic dictator who styled himself a revolutionary theorist, he was for decades one of the world's most notorious state sponsors of terrorism before a brief rehabilitation — and then a violent end that became a lasting argument in American foreign-policy debates. ## Rule Gaddafi seized power as a young colonel and built a personalized regime around his "Third Universal Theory," set out in his *Green Book*. Libya under his rule sponsored terrorism abroad — most infamously the 1988 Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 — and endured U.S. airstrikes and sanctions. In the 2000s he reversed course, surrendering his weapons-of-mass-destruction programs in 2003 in a deal often cited (by the [[Iraq War]]'s defenders) as proof that the invasion had frightened other rogue states into compliance. ## Fall and Death When the [[Arab Spring]] reached Libya in February 2011, Gaddafi's violent crackdown prompted a UN-authorized [[NATO]] air campaign under the [[Barack Obama]] administration. The intervention helped rebel forces topple him; in October 2011 he was captured near Sirte and summarily killed by fighters of the National Transitional Council. Libya then collapsed into a prolonged civil war and state failure that persists. ## RWKB Significance Gaddafi's fate is a recurring touchstone in the vault. His death helped discredit "humanitarian intervention" and regime change, feeding the [[Forever Wars]] critique that the realignment right weaponized: Libya became shorthand for a war that destabilized a country and left chaos behind. His WMD surrender also became a cautionary tale in nuclear diplomacy — the lesson, drawn by adversaries like North Korea and Iran, that giving up a deterrent invites destruction. The Libya intervention remains a black mark on the interventionist record that nationalists cite against the [[Neoconservatism]] consensus. ## See Also - [[Arab Spring]] - [[NATO]] - [[Barack Obama]] - [[Forever Wars]] - [[Authoritarianism]]