Mad north northwest

Col. Muammar Gaddafi is widely assumed to be mad. President Ali Abdullah Saleh also laid claim to the adjective today when he said Washington and Tel Aviv were behind the protests spreading throughout the Arab world.

I don’t think either one is nuts.  Saleh knows as well as anyone else that both Washington and Tel Aviv are discomforted by the protests, which threaten not only himself but other American and Israeli favorites.  But Saleh also knows that labeling the protests as an American/Jewish conspiracy is a good bet for inducing Yemenis think twice about whether they merit support.

Gaddafi’s sartorial tastes and wild-eyed lying about not using violence against the protesters and about how much his people love him certainly merit being labeled as extravagant and delusional.  But he knows that dictatorship is in large measure theater, and his efforts to create an alternative reality have served him well for more than 41 years.  How Christiane Amanpour gets through an interview with him without laughing in his face I don’t know.

Neither Yemenis nor Libyans seem inclined to fall any longer for their leaders’ tall tales.  Going along to get along was a reasonable strategy when you felt alone with your local autocrat and his security apparatus.  But once you have 10,000 compatriots with you, the need to go along evaporates, along with the fear.

Unfortunately, there is still reason to fear both Gaddafi and Saleh.

Gaddafi is laying siege to his opponents in Zawiya, a town not far from Tripoli to the west, and is attacking there and farther afield using aircraft.  The UN will feel obliged to impose a No Fly Zone if that continues. It would be easier and cheaper to act unilaterally to nail his planes to the tarmac, but I imagine cooler heads will prevail.  One of his henchmen should at least try to remind Gaddafi that blocking food to Zawiya and shelling civilians are arguably crimes against humanity, for which he can expect to pay if he survives. Or maybe Christiane can work that into her next set of questions:  “Do you know that you might be charged with crimes against humanity if you bomb civilians or deny them food?”

Saleh is a more complicated case.  He is offering his opponents a role in government, which they have refused, preferring that he step down.  He has been losing tribal support but now and again allows a peaceful demonstration without his thugs attacking it, as he did over the weekend.  But his army sometimes shoots at demonstrators, especially if they are in Aden, where international scrutiny is less rigorous.

These are not madmen.  They are men so attached to power that they cannot imagine living without it.  And likely they are right.  While Mubarak is setting a good example by withdrawing to Sharm el Sheikh to lick his wounds, I doubt either Saleh or Gaddafi will find a comfortable retirement home.  And both can tell a hawk from a handsaw when the wind is southerly.