Though he never published an academic article on the subject, his actions could at times give the impression that he may have been one of the world's great experts in revolutions and democratic uprisings. At (almost) every turn, when the end of his rule should have been inevitable, he found a way to cheat the fate that nearly every theory of revolution says he should have fallen to long ago. When the middle class grew too strong, he abruptly changed the currency, collapsing personal savings. When businesses became too powerful, he opened up more government subsidies to shut them down. When government leaders and ministries earned enough influence to potentially challenge his rule, he shifted their power to popular councils. One year he might free political prisoners, the next put them into mass graves. His secret police were everywhere, but so were his handouts. When people got sick of it and rallied, he had a senior official send in riot police; then he'd declare common cause with the protesters and sack the official. He formed new democratic institutions. Yet, somehow, he always ended up in charge.

Abroad, he was just as savvy, just as willing to ruthlessly strike at his rivals one moment and to join them the next. Two of his first foreign policy decisions were to guarantee the U.S. military base its safety, ensuring early American support, and then, when he no longer needed the U.S., to kick the Americans out forever, winning support from anti-Western movements at home. Foreseeing the rise of revolutionary movements in 1970s post-colonial Africa perhaps better than any other world leader, he gave them money and training when they needed it most, building a continent of deeply indebted allies, some of which held their allegiance until the very end. He declared himself a lifelong ally of his fellow Arab leaders and then an enemy of them, fighting a war with Egypt and threatening the lives of Saudi royal family members.

In the mid-1980s, when the West became interested in spreading democracy in his region, Qaddafi's government launched a string of terrorist attacks, most infamously the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Scotland that killed 270 people. The decade and a half of near-war with the West was tense enough to rally Libyans behind Qaddafi (and to make them more fearful of Western governments) but peaceful enough to ensure he was never in any real danger. After September 11, 2001, Qaddafi saw an opportunity to make the U.S. an ally in his never-ending war against his own people. He sold out the Islamist movements he had helped inspire, shipping many of them to U.S.-sponsored prisons in Egypt or elsewhere. He pledged to dismantle his nuclear program in 2003, but managed to hold onto it until late 2009.

When Qaddafi shipped favored son Saif off to Great Britain for school, he created a foil that, perhaps more than anything else, ensured the West's hesitant acquiescence. Saif appeared to be a passionately pro-Western, pro-American, pro-capitalist reformer: he authored a thesis on democratization and social mobilization (which later turned out to be plagiarized), met with Western government officials and industry leaders to promise them great things, and even drafted a Libyan constitution. Father Muammar, always shaking the bag, alternatively embraced and rejected Saif's reforms, making it appear that his family was in the midst of an earnest struggle for Libya's future. Qaddafi's biggest and greatest sell was that, however awful his own rule had been, presumed successor Saif would lead the country to prosperity and democracy if only the world (and Libyans) would let the family remain in power undisturbed. And, for years, it worked, just like so many of Qaddafi's schemes and plots.