Ali Ahmida interviewed on PBS's Charlie Rose show

Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Political Science, was interviewed on the Charlie Rose show on PBS Feb. 22, 2011 on the uprising in Libya against the regime of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, Libya's long-serving dictator. Ahmida, who shared the 20-minute interview with Khaled Mattawa of the University of Michigan, told the television audience that regardless of whether Qaddafi uses brute force to quash the uprising, the legitimacy of the regime is gone. He said that Qaddafi might survive possibly, but not for long. Ahmida also told viewers that the U.S. and European nations should be very careful about intervention because of a deep distrust by Libyans of the west as a legacy of colonialism. Ahmida is the author of The Making of Modern Libya: State Formation, Colonialization and Resistance, and several other books on Libya and North Africa. Watch the video by going to this link and clicking on the program at the right.