Now that we’ve told the story of the rise and fall of Nasserism, we turn to Libya and its handsome and charismatic dictator, Col. Muammar Gaddafi. Believing himself to have inherited Nasser’s mantle of Arab leadership, Gaddafi’s brazen narcissistic insanity is the stuff of legend, and Aimen’s got a caravan-load of funny anecdotes to illustrate just how nuts he was. But more seriously, Gaddafi symbolizes the tragic turn toward unhinged dictatorship which much of the Arab world underwent in the second half of the Cold War. Gaddafi, Assad, Saleh, Mubarak, Ben Ali, and of course Saddam Hussein—they all stalked the Middle East like undead zombies of Nasser, a nightmare from which the Arab world is still recovering.
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