Did Qaddafi score some points?

The Financial Times’s Gideon Rachman, who I keep running into the halls here, sallies forth with a qualified defense of some of Muammar al-Qaddafi’s speech: Now clearly Gaddafi is going to get bad reviews in the morning papers here in the US. But I have to say that some of what he had to say ...

By Joshua Keating, a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

September 24, 2009, 2:03 PM

The Financial Times's Gideon Rachman, who I keep running into the halls here, sallies forth with a qualified defense of some of Muammar al-Qaddafi's speech:

The Financial Times’s Gideon Rachman, who I keep running into the halls here, sallies forth with a qualified defense of some of Muammar al-Qaddafi’s speech:

Now clearly Gaddafi is going to get bad reviews in the morning papers here in the US. But I have to say that some of what he had to say made perfect sense. It is entirely true that the structure of the UN Security Council is anomalous and outdated (although it was perhaps a bit harsh to call it “the terror council”). Gaddafi’s analysis of why it is so hard to reform the council was also bang on the money – each time you suggest one country, you trigger a demand from the next one in the queue. (So if you suggest Germany, Italy jumps up and down.) And his proposed solution – a Security Council of regional organisations such as the EU, Asean, the African Union – sounded like an elegant way out.[…]

But that’s the thing. Many of Gaddafi’s statements, which will be scorned in the West, actually probably resonate in the developing world. His views on the Security Council are widely shared. President Lula of Brazil said something not too dissimilair.

It’s true that Qaddafi’s attacks on the security council, if a bit bombastic, weren’t that different in substance from what a lot of the leaders here have been expressing. Even Nicolas Sarkozy said it was "unacceptable" that Africa has no seat on the council.

I actually think on of the more unfortunate things about Qaddafi’s speech is that it put an entirely reasonable idea — security council reform — in the context of raving luncay. U.N. reform advocates would do much better to have Lula as the face of their movement rather than Qaddafi, but the Colonel gets much bigger headlines.

I do, however, completely agree with Rachman that Qaddafi’s comparison of the General Assembly to London’s Hyde Park speaker’s corner was clever and entirely accurate.

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

Tag: United Nations