By Michel Colomès Tony Blair and Colonel Gaddafi in 2007 © Leon Neal / AFP
Tony Blair's attempt to persuade the Libyan leader to resign could paradoxically embarrassment.
It is probably the only Western leader since the Libyan revolution takes a nasty turn of civil war, having spoken to Colonel Gaddafi.
Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister, telephoned Friday to the Libyan leader twice, at bay, advising him to withdraw without delay and without doubt to propose an alternative solution. For between the two calls, Blair had joined the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to verify - Even if he denies it - the feasibility of retirement solutions (Venezuela of Hugo Chavez?) He proposed in dictator turned Tripoli.
But the Libyan colonel proved as stubborn as disconnected from reality. In an interview with The Times, Tony Blair acknowledged that his phone calls have drawn a blank. Gaddafi not only refused any notion of resigning, but he repeated that he would fight to the death if necessary. Former British Prime Minister was telling her he had "raised the heart" when seeing the number of victims already caused by his stubbornness, Qaddafi, hopelessly blind to the reality of the situation, he replied that it was just some militants of al-Qaida.
Blair, ambassador of good will ...
Tony Blair is certainly the Western leader who best knows Colonel Gaddafi. Both are called by their first names since Blair in April 2004, on his way to Tripoli, had served as a goodwill ambassador with the Libyan dictator to get him back on track and make him abandon the project to weapons of mass destruction, both nuclear and chemical. And above snatching the promise not to sell terrorism in which he had so tragically illustrated by sponsoring the Lockerbie bombing and that of the French UTA DC1O.
Gaddafi was then handed over to British justice those responsible for the Lockerbie bombing, abandoned his search and obtained nuclear weapons, suddenly, no longer appear in the directory infamous terrorist countries with which all international trade is prohibited. The British were obviously hoping, though illusory, that in becoming a country frequently, Libya would also be a dictatorial regime and a little less bloody.
... turkey and stuffing
In 2007 already, the case Bulgarian nurses in danger of death under the absurd accusation of having brought on AIDS in Libya was a sign that madness still reigned in the Libyan kadhafienne. The order gave it to suppress the protests by shooting and shelling with mortars and rocket his own people, the blind brutality that we fortunately had not previously known in other Arab revolutions shows that Gaddafi is the one that Ronald Reagan stayed taxed for "mad dog".
And the butt of the joke may be the unfortunate Tony Blair, already criticized by the press of his country for an approach that some consider questionable. For Saif al-Islam, son Gaddafi wanted to put some more door-to-fake by slipping into the ear of journalists Anglo-Saxon approach of former British Prime Minister was far from disinterested. There was even, he said, millions of euros to the key because he was, he said, in business with the LIA, Libyan Investment Authority in Africa. Blair has vigorously denied. But we know too, in our time, it takes ten denials to kill a lie.
