The crimes that both former rulers had committed during these transition phases are well known by most. They were simply overlooked by the West while in the friendly phase and recognized while in the hostile stage.

Nevertheless, Libya's relations with these powers began to improve in 1999 having gradually deteriorated following the 1969 coup in which Gaddafi came to power. This was as he took a firm stance against Western imperialism during his first years in power. But then, this stance slowly dissolved and left the collective conscience, to the point where US Senator John McCain on a visit with Gaddafi in 2009 tweeted, "late evening with Col. Gaddafi at his "ranch" in Libya - interesting meeting with an interesting man."

Seemingly, Libyan diplomats killing Yvonne Fletcher, a British policewoman in 1984, the Libyan regime attacking a night club in West Berlin in 1986, killing three and injuring 229 others, Gaddafi downing Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 and the French UTA Flight 772 in 1989, killing 440 people, as well as all the domestic atrocities the Gaddafi regime has committed, were all suddenly part of a forgiven and long forgotten phase in history.

It is Worthy of mention, however, that Gaddafi had at the turn of the millennium started to give in to the demands of the very same imperialists he had so vehemently despised a decade earlier.

His regime paid compensation for the killing of Yvonne Fletcher and the bombing of the West Berlin night club as well as to the families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103. In addition, he also announced that he would abandon his weapons of mass destruction program.

Since Gaddafi was thereafter seen as a "good boy" in the eyes of Western powers, his regime resumed diplomatic relations with the UK and five agreements were signed in 2008 between the two countries. In the same year, he also signed an agreement with Silvio Berlusconi, in which Italy would pay as much as $5 billion in compensation for its military occupation of Libya decades earlier.

Then all of a sudden in the early days of 2011, a wave of democratic movement emerged in the Middle East and North Africa. This wave hit both Libya and Bahrain at almost at the same time. Both the Gaddafi regime as well as Bahrain's Al Khalifa regime began to crackdown on their countries' pro-democracy protesters, attempting to survive.

When the majority of a nation demands a set of rights, their wish should not be denied, no matter who they are. Yet, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barak Obama's approach to the bloody and brutal crackdown on people in Bahrain and Libya has been totally different.

"For four decades, the Gaddafi regime ruled the Libyan people with an iron fist. Basic human rights were denied. Innocent civilians were detained, beaten and killed. And Libya's wealth was squandered. The enormous potential of the Libyan people was suppressed, and terror was used as a political weapon. Today, we can definitively say that the Gaddafi regime has come to an end. ... And one of the world's longest-serving dictators is no more," said Obama on Thursday, shortly after the death of Gaddafi had been announced.

"In Bahrain, steps have been taken toward reform and accountability. We're pleased with that, but more is required. America is a close friend of Bahrain, and we will continue to call on the government and the main opposition bloc, the Wefaq, to pursue a meaningful dialogue that brings peaceful change that is responsive to the people," said Obama as he addressed the UN General Assembly last month, knowing that the Al Khalifa dynasty, which have also been in power for more than four decades, have killed, tortured and systematically arrested countless innocent Bahrainis.

Nonetheless, while signs of such reforms are yet to be seen in Bahrain, the country is the home of US Navy's Fifth Fleet. So is the US a "close friend of Bahrain" because of this fleet and other reasons which it feels are beneficial for the moment? And if so, would it drop this friendship and launch a military intervention in the country should it feel that Bahraini regime is no longer beneficial to US interests?

After all, exactly the same thing happened to Saddam Hussein, one of the United States' closest Middle East allies during the 1980s. During the presidencies of both Ronald Reagan and George Bush senior, Saddam received chemical and biological weapons technology, as well as financial aid. And it was during this decade that Saddam waged an 8-year long war with Iran, killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians in addition to thousands of Kurds in his own country.

But then in the 1990s, and increasingly more after the millennium, he came to be known as the most dangerous man in the world by the West, and was presented as a much bigger threat than he really was or had the recourses to become. In 2003, the US invaded Iraq under the false pretext of locating and destroying the country's weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was overthrown, captured and executed by the same forces that had previously backed him.

Last year, Gaddafi delivered a speech in the Libyan city of Sirte on the 24th anniversary of a US attack on the North African country. While he talked about the attack, and the Libyan people's resistance against it, he also said "Now, ruling America is a black man from our continent, an African from Arab descent, from Muslim descent, and this is something we never imagined, that from Reagan we would get to Barak Obama," adding that Obama "is someone I consider a friend."

Evidently he wasn't such a good friend after all.

"For the region, today's events prove once more that the rule of an iron fist inevitably comes to an end," said Obama after he praised the death of Gaddafi on Thursday. While he surely did not direct his speech to the authoritarian rulers of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia as they currently enjoy friendly ties, one wonders, how long before the Al Khalifa and Al Saud dynasties turn into the new enemies of the West and the world witnesses new occupations?

Should the moral of the story be to not side with the West?

Source:Islam Times