When Kadafi commanded respect
Watching from afar as Moammar Kadafi's control crumbles in Libya, I was reminded of the events of March 1974. It's hard to remember today, but there was a time when the Libyan leader commanded great respect in the Middle East, and that spring he was at the height of his power.
The mercurial dictator, whose country was sitting on a lake of oil the size of Alaska, had been the first to declare an oil embargo against the United States after President Nixon asked Congress for $2.2 billion to resupply Israel's armed forces during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The other Arab nations in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries eventually joined the Kadafi embargo, and Henry Kissinger was working hard behind the scenes to try to end it.… Seguir leyendo »