Walker's World: Gadhafi fights back

PARIS, March 7 (UPI) -- Ruthless and abominable it may be, but Moammar Gadhafi's counteroffensive against his own people may yet be just as significant for the future of the Arab world as the successful revolution in Egypt.

It is too soon to say whether Gadhafi's fight back will succeed. It has managed so far to hold the capital of Tripoli and has enjoyed scattered successes elsewhere. Its air power has inflicted some damage on the eastern heartland of the revolution against him, based in Benghazi.

But above all, Gadhafi has stalled the momentum of the revolution and dented the heady claim that the Arab Spring was unstoppable. He has held out the prospect, however slim and however unsavory, that tyranny can survive and that the bad guys can still win.

With any luck, his successes will prove short-lived and he will soon be toppled and face the justice of the people he has misruled for so long. But he hasn't fallen yet. He has kept his nerve. He hasn't fled. At least some key parts of his security forces remain loyal and prepared to fight for his regime.

That is the real significance of the battle of Libya and one that won't be lost on Arab governments from Morocco to Jordan and Saudi Arabia. It is a lesson that the Iranian government has already learned, from its brutal suppression of the Green Revolution last year and its current clampdown on any hints of opposition.

Last month, the triumph of the Arab revolutions appeared inevitable and the only recourse of their frightened leaders was to make concessions. They have promised reforms and handed out lavish largesse like the $36 billion in welfare and bonus payments by the Saudi monarchy and the $2,700 payment to each family in Bahrain.

But now, after Gadhafi's resistance, there will be generals and intelligence chiefs murmuring into the rulers' ears that there are other options.

Gadhafi has demonstrated a truth as old as government itself: that a government need not fall if it can rally sufficient loyalists and firepower to defend it. Or as Prince Nayef, the Saudi interior minister, has put it, "What we won by the sword we will keep by the sword."

Gadhafi has based his struggle to retain power on his air force and combat helicopters, on a handful of loyal and elite units and on an unknown number of mercenaries. He has been helped by the geography of Libya, the vast desert distances between the major urban areas, his control of TV and most radio and his ability to cut off the Internet. In essence, he has used a tactic of tyrants that is as old as time. He has always maintained a personal military capability separate from the army itself.

The Roman emperors had their Praetorian Guards, stationed outside Rome, lavishly paid and (usually) loyal to the emperor. Napoleon had his Old Guard. Adolf Hitler, who faced more than one plot against him from the officer corps of the army, had his SS, the Schutzstaffel. Saddam Hussein had his Republican Guard.

The Iranian regime is propped up by the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, widely known as the Revolutionary Guard. It has 125,000 military personnel including ground, air and naval forces. It also controls the paramilitary Basij militia which has 100,000 active members and in recent years has developed into a vast and self-sustaining commercial empire.

In the old Soviet Union, even while the army was kept on a tight leash, the Politburo maintained a separate military force of more than 200,000 troops under the MVD, the Ministry of Internal Affairs. And of course it also had the KGB, the huge intelligence apparatus which had its own departments for the identification and suppression of internal dissent.

So instead of bowing to the apparently inevitable demands for democracy, authoritarian leaders in the Middle East and elsewhere may be considering the lessons of the Libyan counterrevolution. It is useful to have the capability to close off the Internet and disrupt cell phone communications. A ruthless and effective secret police is essential.

It is equally important to have loyal troops and special units who are widely hated, so they will have little choice but to fight for the regime. Foreign mercenaries, as Gadhafi has shown, can be very useful.

And then there is the Chinese model, where the army is largely integrated into the ruling system, and where the regime's main buttress is its ability to deliver economic growth and prosperity. Perhaps China will continue to widen the space allowed for private enterprise, private ideas and free thinking and follow Taiwan and South Korea down the path from autocracy toward democracy. Perhaps.

But there can be little doubt that Gadhafi's example of resistance to the democratic tide and his vicious counterattack, along with the feeble and self-serving Western response, will give autocrats everywhere much to ponder. History may be on the march in North Africa but the bad guys now have reason to hope that it can be gunned down.