Word: gaddafi
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Rarely has a marriage between nations been arranged so quickly. On Sept. 1, Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi sounded out Syrian President Hafez Assad on the question of merger. A week later, Assad flew off to Tripoli to discuss details; two days after that the deal was struck. According to a 13-point proclamation issued in Tripoli and Damascus, the two leaders had agreed to form a "political, economic, military and cultural union" that would become "the base for confronting the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland and the liberation of Palestine...
...Iraq, and could use some of Libya's oil riches for its ailing economy and for modernizing its Soviet-equipped army. Libya is at loggerheads with Egypt and Morocco and is viewed with suspicion by a number of other Arab states. There are also some problems at home. Gaddafi has vowed to go to Upper Galilee to fight the Israelis. Apparent meaning: he would not mind sending to Syria some of those Libyan military units, now based in Tobruk near the Egyptian border, that last month attempted an insurrection against his regime...
...While Gaddafi and Assad were talking merger last week, the Egyptians and Israelis were inching their way back toward negotiations on Palestinian autonomy. The two sides had earlier agreed to resume the talks and to hold another summit conference, probably in Washington, some time after the U.S. elections. Last week Israel's Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir flew to Alexandria to see President Anwar Sadat and discuss existing differences. The Israelis have hinted that as a good-will gesture to Egypt and the U.S., they may release some Palestinian political prisoners and Prime Minister Menachem Begin may postpone the transfer...
...another arena of Middle Eastern affairs, a curious courtship was taking place between Libya and Syria. On the occasion of the eleventh anniversary of his country's revolution, Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi unexpectedly proposed an "immediate" merger with Syria. Equally unexpected was the almost instantaneous reply of Syrian President Hafez Assad: "We extend our arm to meet with yours in unity." Syria is at loggerheads with two of its Arab neighbors, Iraq and Jordan, and is desperately short of cash, so a union with Libya might conceivably work to its benefit. But such merger proposals, offered in the name...
What has changed, especially in the past few years, is that assassination has become an official form of warfare. National leaders like Libya's Gaddafi and Syria's Assad announce open season on their enemies, and whether or not they actually hire the hit men or, more likely, merely encourage assassins by their lusty rhetoric, they leave little doubt of their connivance. Not far from where Mr. Tabatabai met his postman, former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier was blown apart on Embassy Row in 1976. The day before the Tabatabai assassination, former Syrian Prime Minister Salah Eddin al-Bitar...