Eric Soffronoff 2/17/2012 Machiavellian Principles Muammar al-Qaddafi (there are various spellings) was born in Sitre, Libya

in 1942. We are not exactly sure what date, either January 7th or June 7th; there is controversy about how to translate the two calendars. Qaddafi was born into a very poor uneducated family. His father, Mohammed Abdul Salam bin Hamed bin Mohammed worked as a camel and goat herder. Qaddafi was the first of his family to receive an education. He entered school in 1956 and graduated in 1963. During this time Qaddafi became a devout admirer of Gamal Abdel Nasser, a Pan-Arabist and independence leader. After graduating, Qaddafi enrolled at the Royal Libyan Military Academy. He came into military school with the preconceived idea of moving up the ranks of the army to overthrow Libyas pro-Western monarch, King Idris. Qaddafi was also greatly involved in the Free Unionist Officers Movement, and he was later commissioned into the signal corps. This is when Qaddafi put into action one of the greatest coups of his time. Qaddafis rise to power was unlike most, he didnt inherit it, he didnt necessarily lead an army to take over the county; his rise was much more interesting. In the beginning of 1969, there were many rumors going around in Libya; the country's senior military leadership would take over the king. When it actually happened on September 1, nobody bothered to check who had led it. A handful of military vehicles had rolled up to government offices and communication centers, quietly shutting down the monarchy in what was widely seen as a necessary and overdue transition. King Idris's government had become so incapable and despised that neither his own personal guard nor the massive U.S. military force stationed outside Tripoli intervened. Army units around the country, believing that the coup was an order from the military chiefs, quickly secured local government offices. Not a single death

was reported; all of Libya, it seemed, had welcomed the military revolution. Almost a week later, Qaddafi couldnt help himself but to tell the people of Libya what had actually happened. He and a group of seventy low-leveled officers staged the whole thing. They had faked the senior military takeover that everyone expected. Qaddafi had effectively tricked Libya and its powerful Western allies into helping him take over the country. By this time there was nothing that could be done, they had already established the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) and renamed Libya the Libyan Arab Republic. Having eliminated competition within the RCC, Qaddafi was appointed the new leader of Libya. Qaddafi, along with many other leaders, used the Machiavellian Principles the help him succeed. Some of the principles he used during his rise of power were, realizing that men change masters willingly when they see opportunity for advancement, gaining the favor of influential people, study and understand the principles/strategies of war, and making sure that his competition was minimal. The people of Libya were sick of King Idris rule and they despised him, so when Qaddafi came into power, the people originally accepted it. The influential people werent necessarily influential by themselves; they were just normal men with the same plan. But when they all banded together they became influential and actually took over the country. He obviously studied military strategy when he attended the Libyan Military Academy. And after he and the RCC took over, Qaddafi was sure to take out anyone that could threaten his chance at power. Those were the principles he used to gain power. Qaddafis first move to solidify control was isolating the country and avoiding contact with the West. He closed the American and British military bases stationed in Libya and expelled Italian and Jewish settlers. This made sure that his competition was minimal. Another tactic he used was appearing religious, merciful, humane, faithful, and sincere. He did this by

redistributing the wealth, diverting some of the oil money from the national coffers to construct housing and to improve agriculture, and granting women a degree of equality in the Libyan Republic. So initially the people liked Qaddafi and they gladly followed him, but then things turned around. He was a hostile and violent man. He periodically brutalized his own people, televised public trials and executions, and even bombed entire Libyan towns that he suspected of being enemy strongholds. It was his way or the highway, but in this case, the highway being death or very cruel punishments. This demonstrated the principle stating that you should maintain fear by threats of punishment. He certainly accomplished that; the people were too afraid to step out of line or attempt to revolt. So this also demonstrated the principle that states that it is more important to be feared than loved, but try to be both. Qaddafi could not be loved by the people because that was just in his nature, so he decided to be feared by them. In between 1976 and 1979, Qaddafi published the Green Book; it outlined his political beliefs. He believed in a Third Way; this was a political view in between the material extremes of capitalism and the godless tyranny of communism. This is what he instituted in Libya, at first There is a Bedouin saying that stated, if you have a bag of rats and you want to keep the rodents from escaping, you have to keep shaking the bag; this translated directly into Qaddafi and the Libyans. His laws and norms changed so frequently and so unpredictably during his rule that the Libyans were often so focused on adjusting to the new customs that they had few real opportunities to organize. This is one of the reasons why he was able to maintain power for so long. This isnt a Machiavellian principle, but it certainly worked for Qaddafi if he was able to rule for 42 years.

Qaddafis fall from power could be contributed to multiple things: he did not deflect blame from himself, he did not avoid scandal, the people did not depend on him, he lost sight of keeping all of his competition weak, he did not do all of his evil in the beginning of his reign, and from his creation of tribal rule. Qaddafi was heavily involved in terrorist activity; this caused him to be tied up in scandal. He led multiple terrorist attacks on America and European countries. Just doing that was dumb enough but he didnt even try to be discreet about it, so he couldnt even deflect blame. This created enemies that he could not defend himself from. His other bad move was creating the tribal rule. By creating many tribal divisions in a population, one is essentially dividing up the organized civil societies into many smaller, hostile civil societies, each less and less governed by the law, and more governed by human nature and animosity. The people then did not depend on Qaddafi and had more freedom to do as they pleased. Qaddafis oppression was continuous and even lasted throughout the last decades of his rule; if he had done all of his villainy in the beginning things probably would have turned out differently. Machiavelli would allow short, concentrated periods of lethal oppression on specific groups, as opposed to Qaddafis long term, moderate oppression on the general population. Such oppression made an enemy out of the people, and this was not a wise decision by Qaddafi. He come to power by a populist coup dtat, his rule was established with promises of glory to the people, and his installation came with popular approval. Such a ruler must keep his people well disposed towards him, and failing to do that lost him the wants of the people and he became deserted. This hatred from the people culminated in the February 2011 uprising, and by August 21st the anti-Qaddafi forced successfully destroyed Tripoli, Qaddafis last stronghold. Finally on October 20th, Libyan officials announced that, after months of evading capture, Qaddafi had been killed amid fighting in his hometown of Sitre.