ABSTRACT
As leader of Libya since the coup he led, aged 27, to overthrow the monarchy in 1969, Muammar Qadhafi has espoused a militant pan-Arabism, attempting to claim the mantle of President Nasser of Egypt who died in 1970. With a population less than one-twelfth of Egypt's, Qadhafi's ambition for leadership in the Arab world and in Africa has always been greater than his capacity. After the 1969 coup, Qadhafi launched the Cultural Revolution in 1973 and a people's revolution in 1977 as expressions of his 'Third Universal Theory' of direct democracy and popular control of the state, which is neither Marxist nor capitalist. In the late 1990s, Qadhafi adopted a pragmatic foreign policy that began steadily to erode Libya's isolation. The end of UN sanctions and of the separate sanctions imposed by the USA has raised the prospect of increased international investment in Libyan oil.
