Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution.

• Author: Smith, Anthony
• Position: Book review

SANDSTORM: Libya in the Time of Revolution

Author: Lindsey Hilsum

Published by: Faber and Faber, London, 2012, 288pp, 17.99 [pounds sterling].

THE LAST REFUGE: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America's War in Arabia

Author: Gregory Johnsen

Published by: Scribe, Melbourne, 2012, 352pp, A$32.99.

Two of the countries most impacted by the Arab Spring uprisings, Libya and Yemen, are the subject of recent volumes.

British journalist Lindsey Hilsum writes an excellent volume on the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. Hilsum notes that to the outside world Gaddafi was often seen as 'a clown' or 'an oddball', but to the Libyan people he was a terrifying figure. Gaddafi's 42-year reign over Libya would end when the leader was found in a ditch, and angry rebels beat, tortured and executed him. Hilsum is able to outline the nature of Gaddafi's despotic rule and his support for revolutionary movements worldwide, his (partial) alignment with the West during the last decade of his rule, and the popular uprising that ultimately deposed him. Sandstorm offers some interesting insights into the deal that Gaddafi struck with Western countries after 9/11. There has been an interpretation that Gaddafi decided to give up his weapons of mass destruction programme after the demonstration effect of the war in Iraq. Hilsum offers more texture here. It is clear that Gaddafi, to some extent less interested in exporting revolution in his later years, was looking for a means to come in from the cold anyway, and 9/11 offered him the opportunity to do so. In the 'war on terrorism', some may have considered the Libya regime a useful ally. Hilsum, writing from the British angle, is quick to point out some of the effusive statements that Tony Blair made about Gaddafi, and how many, probably as the result of a Westernised facade, misjudged Gaddafi's son, Saifal-Islam, who would subsequently prove to share the despotic instincts of his father. Despite Blair's analysis, Libya was in fact a major source of jihadists and suicide bombers in Iraq, many coming specifically from the Cyrenaica region, which included the city of Benghazi. Benghazi was notable for two social/political movements--religious conservatism and hatred for the Gaddafi regime. Hilsum quotes the late US Ambassador Chris Stevens (tragically killed in Benghazi by extremists in 2012) as saying that elements radicalised by the Gaddafi regime were willing to strike at the regime's perceived backer, that is, the United States. Once...