Libya's Moammar Gadhafi has an ultimatum for the rebels seeking to oust him: It's me or chaos. That message was conveyed by TIME's Robert Baer, via an unnamed source with connections to Libya's unstable regime. According to Baer's source, Gadhafi knows he can't retake the country with the 5,000 troops still loyal to him. So, to make his point and punish disloyal Libyans, he's apparently ordered those soldiers to torch Libya's oil fields and blow up pipelines to Mediterranean ports. Would Gadhafi really destroy the source of his country's wealth? Could he? (Watch a report about Gadhafi's orders)
Gadhafi is just desperate enough to try this: Libya's oil exports are already plummeting amidst the violent unrest, says Addison Wiggin in The Daily Reckoning. And while Gadhafi's threat to make that "plunge to zero" may well "just be a bluff," everyone from his officers to his own interior minister have defected to the opposition, and "desperate men do desperate things."
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