Special Venom for the U.S.

It was 2 o'clock in the morning, and Muammar Gaddafi was weary. As host of an Organization of African Unity (O.A.U.) summit, he had been working around the clock for more than a week to try to salvage the conference. When not whisking about in his pale blue Bedouin robes or stylish dark suit, with half a dozen Kalashnikov-toting female bodyguards in blue berets swelling his progress, Gaddafi had spent the previous few days reading reports and consulting with other Arabs about the news from Lebanon. None of it was good from his standpoint. He had just seen off the last of his African guests and changed into a loose-fitting short-sleeve shirt and slacks. The exhaustion showed on his face and sounded in his voice. Instead of English, which he speaks well, he preferred to answer questions in Arabic as he conversed with TIME Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott. Sometimes Gaddafi's comments were barely audible, but what they lacked in volume, they made up in vehemence. Talbott's report on the interview with the Libyan leader:

Gaddafi is not only angrier and more implacable than ever toward Israel and the U.S., he is disgusted with the Palestine Liberation Organization for even entertaining the idea of leaving Beirut, with the neighboring Arab states for accepting the Palestinians, and with the Soviet Union for not somehow preventing the U.S. from letting Israel get away with the invasion.

While refusing to name countries, Gaddafi was scathing about the eight states that have tentatively agreed to accept the P.L.O., including Syria, with which Libya is supposedly still negotiating a merger. "The reactionary Arab regimes that have had a hand in arranging the expulsion of the Palestinian resistance will themselves face the revenge of the Palestinians," Gaddafi said. "If the Palestinian fighters are dispersed to several Arab countries, the regimes there will suffer unrest. There will be destabilization in those countries. Moreover, the Palestinians will find a way to return [to Lebanon and to fight against Israel] across a number of fronts. Then perhaps the world will see that the only solution is to give the Palestinians their own homeland, to establish a Palestinian democratic state." Such a state, in Gaddafi's view, would not exist alongside Israel. It would supplant Israel.

Gaddafi is equally furious with Yasser Arafat and the central P.L.O. leadership for agreeing to leave Lebanon. "The fact is that right-wing Palestinians and right-wing Arab regimes have been accomplices in bringing about this shameful catastrophe, this disaster that has befallen the civilians [of Lebanon] and this threat to international peace. I believe the current leadership [of the Palestinians] has lost the justification for its existence. Out of this whole situation will perhaps come a new leadership that will be able to undo the disaster in Beirut, one that will be able to take over from the old leadership now that it has been defeated and discredited."