Gaddafi"s Empire

Now that his empire is crumbling around him and he is fleeing like a scared little girl, so much for "I am willing to die a martyr" ;) , I was inspired to write this WI, what if Gaddafi was able to pull off the merger(s) with surrounding states he had planned, in the early 70"s Gaddafi had Tried to merge with both Egypt under Anwar Sadat, and Tunisia, under Habib Bourgiva, if he had offered tis to both with Sadat taking the presidency and Habib being his number 2, and having Gaddafi as defense minister like he had planned I imagine to become the strong man of the government and take over. What would have happened in this nation, could Gaddafi gain power and hold it, how would the cold war be effected with this change in the non-aligned movement. Any questions related to this should be asked here.
 
The problem is both of them were pro-Western and Gadafi was... not. You'll have to have a POD in the late '60s I think, before Nasser died.
 
Every Gadaffi unification and pan - Arab wet dream failed because Libya does not have the capabilities to back it up ( her 5 million, Egypt's 80 million people, as one example ). Those plans were mostly used just for show and prestige gathering in the end.

But his real influence was felt in the states of lower Sahara ( Mali, Mauretania, Chad, etc..). There he pumped a pretty quantity of money in their economies, spread his influence ( remember his war with the Chad in the 80's, I think ), and you could see that in the first weeks of civil war the most of his support came from those states, be that in the form of vocal political support or foreign fighters for hire.
 
Arab Unification movements have historically not worked out. Anything that came to fruition didn't last long.

A successful unification would be nice to see, though.
 
Arab Unification was a complete joke due to the political, economic, and cultural differences but also mostly due to the egos of the leaders involved.
 
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