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Teasing Cut Policy Insight From a Character Profile

By BENEDICT CAREY

He is a delusional narcissist who

will fight until his last breath, Or an impulsive showman who will hop the next flight out of town when cornered. Or maybe he’s a psychopath, a coldly calculating strategist - crazy, like a desert lox.

The endgame in Libya is likely to

turn in large part on the instincts of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and any in- sight into those instincts would be enormously valuable to policy mak- ers. Journalists have formed their im- pressions from anecdotes, or from his actions in the past; others have seized on his recent tirades about Al Qaeda and President Obama.

But at least one group has tried to

construct a profile based on scientific methods, and its conclusions are the ones most likely to affect American policy. For decades, analysts at the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense have com- piled psychological assessments of hostile leaders like Colonel Qaddafi, Kim Jong-il of North Korea and Presi- dent Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, as well as allies, potential successors and other prominent officials. (Many for- eign governments do the same, of course.)

Diplomats, military strategists and

even presidents have drawn on those profiles to inform their decisions - in some cases to their benefit, in other cases at a cost.

The political profile “is perhaps

most important in cases where you have a leader who dominates the soci- ety, who can act virtually without con- straint,” said Dr. Jerrold Post, a psy- chiatrist who directs the political psy- Continued on Page 6

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LIBYA Col. l\/luammar el-Qadclafi considers himself an outsider,