The Good Bad Son

„In February, as protests in ­Benghazi—where Muammar had started his coup four decades ago—turned into a civil war and government security forces went on the offensive, Colonel Qaddafi asked his son to come home. Liberal Libyans and Saif’s supporters were convinced he could be the peacemaker.

But when Saif finally did emerge, in a speech on state television on February 20, those hopes vanished. He talked for almost an hour, appearing at times disoriented, baffled, or bored. Wearing a suit and sitting in front of a map of Africa, he blamed tribal factions for the fighting, then Islamists, then foreigners. He promised reforms and warned of civil war, and closed with »We will live in Libya and die in Libya.«

His subsequent appearances only got worse. In interviews, he informed the world that there was no war, but if there were, its real villains were not the Qaddafis but terrorists, drug dealers, Washington, the U.N., Prime Minister David Cameron, or the very news networks talking to him at that moment. By March, when footage of Saif toting an assault rifle and rallying pro-Qaddafi troops leaked onto the Internet, it was clear not only that Saif wouldn’t be Libya’s visionary but that he’d become the new spokesman for a congenital strain of Qaddafian dementia. Slouching in an armchair in a luxury hotel suite, looking tired and impatient, he scolded a SkyNews interviewer: »There is a big, big gap between reality and illusion,« he said, the reality being his and the illusion that of Westerners. The latter were »living in their own world … They have no idea what is going on in Libya.«

But of course Saif knew better than anyone that this was a lie. Certain Westerners had a very good idea of what was going on in Libya—because of him. »A whole passel of people are thoroughly surprised and unhappy and very confused about Saif,« a lobbyist who worked closely with him says. Some have urged Saif to abandon his family. One sent him a text: »You’re better than this.« But most have washed their hands of him. »They all liked him then, but they’ll all say he’s terrible now,« Fahmy-Hudome says.”