An Interview with Gaddafi

Libya's leader predicts the treaty will hurt the U.S.

About halfway through the 90-minute interview in Tobruk, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was interrupted by a military aide who handed him a note. The revolutionary who heads Libya's government paused in his bitter denunciation of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty just long enough to read the message. Then he smiled wanly, shook his head and waved the aide away with the back of his hand. The note informed Gaddafi that live TV coverage of the White House signing ceremony was beginning in the next room. Gaddafi clearly preferred to talk about the treaty rather than join his staff around the TV. The main points he made to TIME's diplomatic correspondent Strobe Talbott:

On the Egyptian-Israeli pact. It is a big step backward. I love peace. We all love peace. It is because of our love for peace that we oppose what is going on in the White House right now. This event will compound the problem of the Middle East. I expect that the Palestinian people will strengthen their resistance against the Israelis and that the Egyptian government will take an unfriendly and aggressive attitude toward the Arabs. At the same time, there will be an increase in the Arabs' unfriendly feelings toward Americans. Also, this action [signing the treaty] will hasten the day of revolution against those reactionary regimes that depend on the Americans, and it will push Arabs to depend more and more on the Soviet Union.

I foresee, first of all, revolutions in Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Neither the Americans nor anyone else will be able to protect those reactionary regimes from revolutions within their own countries. These revolutions will be the work of the people of Saudi Arabia and Morocco, people who are now unknown but who will do their job. The revolution is coming--I know it.

There are also the seeds of revolution in Egypt. The masses in the streets are ready for revolution, and this agreement will make it come sooner.

While the agreement is a step backward for the cause of peace, it has some positive results in that it will toughen the Palestinians in their confrontation with the Israelis and assure the success of revolution against reactionary regimes. From the American standpoint, the agreement will have a negative result: increasing enmity toward the U.S. and bringing the Arabs closer to the Soviet Union. But for ourselves, for us Arabs, that is a positive result. Why should we be closer to the Soviets? Because the Americans have challenged us. America is involved in a conspiracy [against the Arab world], primarily because of its policy toward Israel. In our view, whoever is against the Americans stands with us. The enemy of your enemy is your friend.

On Carter. He's a good man, but he is ignorant and naive in international politics, so he falls into traps, such as this agreement. We see this agreement as part of his election propaganda campaign --nothing else.

On U.S. arms sales to Egypt. While making propaganda about peace, the U.S. is increasing the danger of war. [Gaddafi argued that the new Egyptian arms are likely to be used not against Israel but against Libya. In July 1977, Egypt launched sharp raids against Libya in a border dispute.] If the Americans seek to change the balance [of power in the region] in a way that is threatening to Libya, we will be forced to seek Soviet assistance to counter that threat. When reactionary regimes threaten us, we will resist.

On Soviet and Cuban involvement in Africa. If there are countries that use Russian and Cuban military aid, then they are forced to do so in order to counter American aggression. We don't see that as Soviet military interference.

On his view of a just Middle East peace. Peace will not be realized unless the Palestinian people have been returned to Palestine and Arab unity has been reestablished. That means that all foreigners must leave Palestine and return to their countries of origin. Only Palestinian Jews should stay in Palestine, as citizens of a secular state where they would live with Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Christians. Israel is a colonialist-imperialist phenomenon. There is no such thing as an Israeli people. Before 1948, world geography knew of no state such as Israel. Israel is the result of an invasion, of aggression.

On his own reputation as a backer of terrorist organizations. That is malicious propaganda used against us, and there is no proof of those charges.

On Libyan backing for the Irish Republican Army. We regard Northern Ireland as under British colonization. The Irish struggle for independence is a just struggle. We don't consider the Irish fight for freedom to be terrorism.

On the Libyan revolution. Our revolution is based on an international ideology, not on a national movement. We have established what we call a "jamahiriya, "which can be defined [Gaddafi shifted from Arabic into English] as "a state run by the people without a government." We believe if governments disappeared and the peoples of the world governed themselves, peace would prevail. The main elements of our new socialism are the vanishing of wages and rents. Employers would disappear; those who are paid wages should become partners in work.

Gaddafi's curious blend of utopianism, anarchism and militant Islamic fundamentalism is reflected in his own rather vague political status. He is clearly the maximum leader. His picture is everywhere. Often he is pictured with Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, his hero, who died in 1970. The "traitor" Sadat is frequently shown in the Libyan press with Moshe Dayan's face in the background--a photo taken during Sadat's speech to the Knesset in 1977. Yet Gaddafi has no official title or post in the Libyan state or government, and he has never allowed himself to be promoted above colonel. He prefers to be addressed as "Brother Muammar " by fellow Arabs.

At the end of the interview, Gaddafi went into an adjoining room where a wide-screen color television was still carrying the live broadcast from the White House. Sadat was speaking. The colonel's entourage stepped back respectfully, leaving Gaddafi to stand alone in the middle of the room. He watched and listened for a few moments, then turned and walked out. On his face was the same wan smile as there had been earlier when he was given the note. It was a smile that connoted grim satisfaction, the "I-told-you-so" smile of someone who has just witnessed an ugly scene that he had long since predicted and who is turning his thoughts to a retribution still to come.

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