The Final Days of Moammar Gadhafi

It probably came as a surprise to many Americans to learn over the weekend that the Libyan revolution was still underway. After all, Libya was several crises ago, back before the London riots, back before the SEAL raid on Abbottabad, back before the debt-ceiling debacle. Baseball season hadn't even begun when President Barack Obama decided to lend United States air assets to the NATO effort to support Libyan rebels.

But in the broad scheme of things, six months isn't a long time for a revolution to ripen. And so it is that over the weekend, the no-longer-quite-so-rag-tag Libyan rebels marched into Tripoli, took control of the North African nation's capital, captured two of President Moammar Gadhafi's sons and began trying to track down Gadhafi himself.

And while the Libyan revolution has been missing from American television, it has been all over Arab television. Somewhere in Damascus, Syrian President Bashir al-Assad is watching al-Jazeera and seeing his future.

The Arab Spring has become the Arab Summer and now bids to become the Arab Fall. Tunisia fell first, and then Egypt. Other tyrants tremble. Now, as Obama said Tuesday, "The Gadhafi regime is showing signs of collapsing."

Mr.

Assad's vicious crackdown notwithstanding, Syria could be next.

During the 42 years of the Gadhafi dictatorship, Libya — never a major player on the world stage — became further marginalized. For decades, Gadhafi agitated for attention as a sponsor of terrorism who had nuclear ambitions. He forswore those in 2003 and turned inward, systematically eliminating every institution and most individuals in the country who could pose a threat to his rule.

When the rebellion began, Mr. Gadhafi responded with more brutality — brutality for which he is being investigated by the International Criminal Court. Should he make it out of Libya alive, he could well be pursued as a war criminal.

There is no doubt that without NATO's intervention, this megalomaniac would have slowly rolled up the rebels, hunting them down — as he said — "like rats and cockroaches." Obama took heat from both the left and the right for sending U.S. air and naval forces into the fray. We are among those who believe he owed Congress more in the way of consultation under the War Powers Act of 1973.

Still, while the economy may be a mess, the president can take some comfort in knowing that in the span of four months, he helped rid the world of Osama bin Laden and Moammar Gadhafi. Not bad for a summer's work.

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