Libya: (AI-Jamahiriyya al-‘Arabiyya al-Libiyya ai-Sha’biyya ai-Ishtirakiyya ai-‘Uzma)

In 1990, the Libyan regime, headed by Mu’ammar al-Qadhdhafi, continued to enjoy much prestige at home for the 21st year in a row. In 1990 Libya enjoyed the highest oil revenues since the oil boom of the 1970s. Qadhdhafi immediately mobilized the tightly controlled media to refute the “deceptive campaign” which, he argued, the West had launched “against Libya and the Arab nation.” The strong international criticism of Libya’s unconventional weapons’ capability and its ambitions elicited strongly worded reactions from Qadhdhafi. Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait elicited an immediate, though largely ambiguous, official Libyan response. The year 1990 was an eventful one in Libyan-Egyptian relations. Libya appeared to have lost interest in the AMU, which had been established by Libya, Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia in early 1989.