Gaddafi ’s Foreign Policy as a Driving Factor of “the Arab Spring” in Libya

Abstract

While considering the factors that contributed to the downfall of the Gaddafi regime the scholars of the Arab Spring events in Libya mainly focus on the domestic or international dimensions of the conflict and neglect the fallacies of Gaddafi’s foreign policy that resulted in his international isolation from the very outset of the Libyan crisis. Breaking away from this pattern the article analyses the bilateral relations of Libya with the USA, the UK, France, Italy, Switzerland, the Persian Gulf countries and member-states of the African Union focusing on the practices that led to the conflicts between Gaddafi and the leaderships of these countries. The author concludes that Gaddafi’s unpredictable, inconsistent and eccentric foreign policy greatly contributed to the consolidation of an international consensus in favour of the direct foreign military intervention in the conflict that ended up in Gaddafi’s ousting from power. Refs. 33.