Analysis: Death of Libya’s Gadhafi is a cautionary tale

Cairo • Images of Moammar Gadhafi’s bloodied body flashed on TV screens across the world may send shivers down the spines of Syria’s Bashar Assad and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh, two leaders clinging to power in the face of long-running Arab Spring uprisings.

For the millions of Arabs yearning for freedom, democracy and new leadership, the death of one of the region’s most brutal dictators will likely inspire and invigorate the movement for change.

Gadhafi’s death sent ripples across the Arab world and set the Internet’s social networks abuzz with comments, mostly celebrating the demise of a leader whose bizarre and eccentric behavior over the years defined the woes of an Arab world mostly ruled by autocratic or despotic leaders.

"There is an emotional connection between the revolutionaries in the region. Hope is contagious," said Egyptian activist Mona Seif. "Our revolution is one. The fall of another tyrant is a victory for all of us," she said in a post on her Twitter account.

Gadhafi was shot dead Thursday in the final battle for his hometown of Sirte on Libya’s Mediterranean coast. He had been in hiding for the two months since the capital of Tripoli fell to rebels who rose up against his 42-year rule in February.

The 69-year-old Gadhafi — the first leader to be killed in the Arab Spring wave of popular uprisings — had vowed to fight to the end. In his world of nationalism and desert valor, it was a fate better than the perceived humiliation of exile or incarceration endured by Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak.

But while the death of Gadhafi and the triumph of the uprising in his North African nation has instantly given heart to pro-reform activists dreaming of change, the Arab world will watch closely what happens next in Libya — and to whether the region’s "Assads" and "Salehs" will see in his fate an incentive to cling to power and crack down even harder on any sign of unrest.

As word spread of Gadhafi’s death, jubilant Libyans poured into Tripoli’s central Martyr’s Square, chanting "Syria! Syria!" — urging the Syrian opposition on to victory.