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After Iraq and Libya, is it now the turn of Iran and Pakistan to become victims of America’s blitzkrieg? Just the other day, US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Pakistan, telling the country not to keep snakes in its backyard while warning Iran to keep off Iraq.

Recently, Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan leader for the last 42 years, met with a gory end. Video clips show that he was captured by the rebels (who were backed by US-led Nato forces), tortured and killed mercilessly.

Under his regime, Libya excelled on the development front, despite the leader being a ruthless dictator.

Here are some stats: during Gaddafi’s rule, literacy rate in Libya rose to a whopping 85 per cent from 10-15 per cent levels during the pre-Gaddafi period.

He created equal opportunity (especially in jobs) for all during his rule and even life expectancy of Libyans shot up to almost 80 years from around 55 years.

During his period, Libya’s infant death rate was among the lowest in the whole of Africa.

However, Gaddafi diverted revenues from oil-rich Libya to meet his and relatives flamboyant lifestyles and procure arms and ammunition as well as chemical weapons.

There was also the other side of Gaddafi. He kept secret agents all over Libya and if anybody rapped him for his policies, the person would be tortured.

Gaddafi even went on to giving his soldiers sex-booster pills. As a result, they would go into houses of rebels, have them killed and their family members raped and tortured.

But after Saddam’s capture, Gaddafi abandoned his chemicals weapons plan and allowed international inspection of the weapons.

Gaddafi had been vehemently opposing US diktat, which prompted the US to realize that control of another oil-rich nation was slipping away.

With Gaddafi abandoning his weapons of mass destruction or WMD programme, did the US have the right to be the Big Daddy and meddle in the affairs of Libya, killing hundreds of innocent people in air strikes, just to gain control of an oil-rich nation?

After all, the US cannot say this time that it is trying to make the world safer by eliminating Gaddafi.

Iraq faced a similar fate as Libya. Before the US Iraq blitz, erstwhile US President George Bush had reiterated that Iraq was being attacked to destroy Saddam, so that his “nefarious” activities of going ahead with his chemical weapons and WMD plan could be thwarted (and the world saved?).

Iraq was captured, Saddam was hanged but no chemical weapon or WMD was found. Net result: thousands of innocent lives lost amid US taking control of an oil-rich nation.

Now, the latest on US radar is Iran, which is a nuclear weapons nation. If the US thinks it will seize power and set up a “friendly” regime, it needs to do a serious introspection.

With Iran being a nuclear weapons nation with a strong and disciplined armed forces, the US’s plan (if any) of seizing power in the country is unlikely to go beyond the drawing board.

Meanwhile, the US’s relationship with its ally Pakistan has ebbed after the world’s most-wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden was captured and killed in that country in a clandestine operation.

Under the current circumstances, trying to arm-twist Iran and Pakistan could be a bad idea for the US and the country seriously needs to give its armed forces a long-deserving relief (of staying home now) if it wants to see no bloodshed among its soldiers and innocent people across the world.