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| Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and the young Colonel Gaddafi of Libya in 1969 |
On Sept. 1, 1969, he and a group of young officers seized power in a bloodless revolution. The charismatic Gaddafi, only 27 at the time, soon emerged as the country’s paramount leader and quickly tried to establish himself as an anti-Western iconoclast. He forced out U.S. and British military forces and, over the next two decades, invited in every shade of radical from the Palestine Liberation Organization to the Irish Republican Army.
Gaddafi was an early enthusiast of an Arab political union and saw himself as Nasser’s natural successor. But nearly all of his efforts to become an Arab liberator floundered, and Libya was often as isolated from its neighbors as it was from the West. The country had small shooting wars with Egypt, Chad and Tunisia. Gaddafi clashed with PLO leader Yasser Arafat. He called for the overthrow of the royal family in Saudi Arabia.
Gaddafi was an early enthusiast of an Arab political union and saw himself as Nasser’s natural successor. But nearly all of his efforts to become an Arab liberator floundered, and Libya was often as isolated from its neighbors as it was from the West. The country had small shooting wars with Egypt, Chad and Tunisia. Gaddafi clashed with PLO leader Yasser Arafat. He called for the overthrow of the royal family in Saudi Arabia.
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