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State is the monthly in-house magazine of the U.S. Department of State. Every issue features a “Post of the Month” which shows life and the American embassy or consulate’s activities in a particular city or country. (I had a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun with the feature a few years back in The Weekly Standard). In September 2010, the State Department decided to feature Tripoli, Libya. Some of the insights:

Today, the Defense Attaché’s Office is cultivating a growing relationship with the Libyan military. Cooperative programs have included military leadership visits and exchanges, working-level discussions with U.S. Africa Command staff, familiarization trips to U.S. military facilities, International Military Education and Training programs, a U.S. Coast Guard ship visit and technical advising for Libya’s C-130 transport aircraft fleet.

That was a wise long-term investment.

The Embassy also worked to line up U.S. investors.

American companies have returned in large numbers, focusing on infrastructure development, consulting and program management, and the oil and gas services industry. In February, the embassy hosted the first U.S. government-led trade mission to Libya in nearly 40 years, with participation by 25 U.S. companies specializing in energy, infrastructure, health care, telecommunications, transportation and other key economic sectors. In May, the United States and Libya signed a bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, which will pave the way for closer engagement on commercial issues.

It will be interesting to see what happens to those investments, and whether the Transitional National Council holds grudges against those companies that sought to ingratiate themselves to dictator Muammar Qadhafi’s regime. Sometimes, if liberty is the first investment, the dividends last more than 11 months.

When it comes to the re-opening of the U.S. embassy, State writes, “The recent warming of bilateral relations comes against the backdrop of a long and complicated relationship.” Only under Hillary Clinton would it be possible for the State Department not to acknowledge that Qadhafi’s transformation of Libya into a terrorist state is the reason for such complications. Nor did the State Department report honestly on the restrictions suffered by American diplomats.

At least life in Tripoli was decent for America’s pampered representatives:

It is not easy setting up a new mission, but Embassy Tripoli employees still find time for fun. In addition to bargaining for antiques in the souks of the old quarter, staffers usually head to the gorgeous beaches near Tripoli on weekends. Archaeological tourism is popular; Libya is home to some of the most impressive Phoenician, Greek and Roman ruins in the world. Desert tourism to Tuareg outposts in the South such as Ghat and Ubari offers Saharan lakes, pre-historic rock art and a glimpse of caravan routes that have changed little in hundreds of years. Recreation options include tennis courts, a stadium for jogging and walking and a “sand” golf course. Those needing a real break can quickly fly to Tunis, Malta and points further afield in Europe.

If only Libyans could be so lucky. Maybe now they can, and perhaps the State Department will do some soul-searching about its embrace of dictator-chic culture.

President Obama should be congratulated on Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi’s fall. While criticism of the White House over its squandering of momentum remains legitimate—had Obama acted earlier and with more force, the civil war might not have so devastated Libya’s infrastructure and population—Obama nevertheless made the right decision to intervene. It was not only a good humanitarian call for the people of Benghazi, but also important for U.S. national security interests. The last thing North Africa needed was for tens of thousands of armed Benghazi residents to flee as refugees into an already de-stabilized Egypt.

Obama should not celebrate just yet. Over at Commentary, where I blog more regularly, I highlight two orders which Obama should give immediately.

1. First, he should order the re-capture of released Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Mohmed Ali al-Megrahi.
2. Second, he should move to protect the documents left behind by Qadhafi. The Libyan archives will be a treasure trove of information about malfeasance not only by Qadhafi and his cronies, but also by his American interlocutors, from Billy Carter to Gary Hart to Louis Farrakhan.

In the 1986 book What Is Africa’s Problem?, the author writes that: “The problem of Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power.” The author of the book was Yoweri Museveni, who was about to become President of Uganda. Today he is re-elected for the fourth time after having been in the job for 25 years already. His country, which has received billions in aid, is in serious trouble with increasing inflation and political unrest. The opposition leader Kizza Besigye has been harassed, and he claims the recent election won by Museveni was rigged.

While observers gave mixed reports on election intimidation, there is little doubt that whatever good the president did for his country, his time has long past. But on he goes, ignoring his own prescient analysis and dragging his country down with him. Perhaps as big a disaster is that donors will not punish his behavior. They’ll carry on funding his AIDS programs, schools, and other special projects that they can show to their own electorate as evidence that their aid saves lives, regardless of the fact that at some stage they will be on the wrong side in Uganda, just as they were in Egypt, Tunisia, and many other places further north.

Some clarity is needed in the debate about what to do in Libya. Some may support intervention. Others will oppose. But they should do so without illusions about the state of play. Some shibboleths that need addressing:

We have no national interest in Libya

We may once have had no national interest in Libya, but Muammar Qadhafi, the Libyan people, and our own president have forced that interest upon us. The president of the United States has (rightly) said Qadhafi must go. If the United States now accepts Qadhafi remaining, that will be a serious blow to our national prestige, with global implications. Perhaps he should not have said it, but unless someone can turn back time, cat’s out of the bag.

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This may prove one of the most daunting challenges confronting al Qaeda now: how is the global jihadi network going to survive, in the near or distant future, the inevitable fall of Moammar Qaddafi? Let’s face it: Osama Bin Laden could remain quiet since the beginning of the Arab uprising, some three months ago in Tunisia, because he had found with the Libyan ruler the perfect partner in his propaganda war. Qaddafi has repeatedly said that the rebels who dare to resist him are just a bunch of Bin Laden’s young operatives, high on drugs generously provided by al Qaeda (the Libyan leader even explained a short-lived lull in the insurgency by the fact that drugs were “wearing out”!).

This tragic farce had an invaluable side-effect for the jihadis: it rejuvenated their big fantasy of global boogeyman, at a moment when the revolutionary movements in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya are practically pushing al Qaeda to the limbos. Even more important, Qaddafi saved Bin Laden the trouble of speaking the unspeakable, of trying to cope with the magnitude of the collapse of anything al Qaeda stood for. Other jihadi luminaries have failed miserably in that regard. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib’s (AQIM) call for support of the Tunisian revolution was issued on the eve on Ben Ali’s departure and went unnoticed in Tunisia. Al Qaeda in Iraq, at the height of the occupation of Tahrir, with Egyptian flags all over the square, warned the protesters against “the putrid idolatry of patriotism.” And Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s Egyptian deputy, waited one week after President Hosni Mubarak’s fall to issue a message designed as though the deposed president was still ruling Cairo.

So those are hard times for al Qaeda: movements which managed to stay peaceful in Tunisia and Egypt were able to topple in a few weeks regimes the jihadis could not destabilize over the past two decades; masses went bravely into the streets to demand democracy, transparency, and accountability, concepts alien and even heretic for al Qaeda; and the American “far enemy,” instead of backing the autocrats all the way, facilitated their stepping down. What is even worse for al Qaeda is that nobody cares anymore in the Arab world about the jihadi statements, which find their main audience in the West. Bin Laden and his followers now pray for some counterrevolution to succeed here or there, in order to reharness their propaganda and machinery. They displayed many times in the past their capacity to make their best out of the Arabs’ worst. And they now hope Qaddafi will remain as long as possible in power, because he could emerge as the last true believer in al Qaeda’s power and influence.

Jean-Pierre Filiu is a professor at Sciences Po, Paris, and Columbia, New York, and author of “Apocalypse in Islam.”

Image by the U.S. Army.