Which is why Qaddafi always struck me as just the puppet, front man.
I think the tribal elders in the hills south of the city, away from the outside threats, were the real power?
But that is just a guess, not having been there.
Nope. Idris was sick and left Libya for medical treatment. A bunch of young guys staged a bloodless coup and Gaddafi beat all of them out. He was a shoeless Bedouin boy. He threw out the Libyan constitution which was quite enlightened, hired Abdullah Tariki and just about killed the Libyan oil business. Tariki hated Americans.