All Trought about politic at Ukraine

The off-the-wall threat that Libyan leaderMoammar Khadafy made to wipeSwitzerland off the map is the just latest bizarre pronouncement from the "Flake of Araby."

Almost from the moment Khadafy oustedLibya's pro-Western King Idris, he has played the flamboyant fool on the world stage.

Although it would be easy to dismiss Khadafy as a daffy dictator, he has shown himself to be a lethal loon who has used his oil-rich country's money to support terrorists and spread his madness.

"I would see him as a very crafty person, rather than a madman, who has tried to play a large role in the Middle East without success," Princeton Lyman of the Council on Foreign Relations told the Daily News.

Born in a tent, and the son of a Bedouin herdsman, Khadafy was a 27-year-old military captain when he led the 1969 coup that brought him into power.

Rather than promote himself to general as many despots do, Khadafy settled on the rank of colonel, saying that Libya is "ruled by the people" so he didn't need a lofty title.

But when Khadafy traveled, it was like a sultan with a retinue of "gun girls" - fetching brunette bodyguards in form-fitting uniforms who toted Kalashnikovs as they jogged alongside his limo.

Khadafy recently drew howls of protest for threatening to pitch his tent in Englewood,N.J., while attending the upcoming meeting of the UN General Assembly.

But it's not the first time he has pulled the tent stunt.

Invited to a summit in the formerYugoslavia, Khadafy pitched a tent in front of a hotel in Belgrade - and flew in six camels and two horses, too.

It was columnist Richard Chesnoff who dubbed Khadafy the "Flake of Araby" after touring the ruins of his house in Tripoli, which was bombed by the U.S. in retaliation for a Libyan terror attack on a G.I. bar in Berlin.

Chesnoff discovered that the supposed desert dweller actually slept on a round bed with a photo of the surf at Big Sur,Calif., adorning the headboard.

With nobody around to say otherwise, Khadafy operated under the illusion that he was catnip to women - especially female journalists.

He once welcomed half a dozen female reporters into his tent while wearing a beige cape, a peach-colored head wrap, a powder blue jumpsuit and a red shirt. During his reign, Khadafy has drawn the ire of the West with his anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli rhetoric and by funding terrorist groups.

He became the prince of a pariah nation after the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland, of which a Libyan agent was convicted.

Increasingly isolated, Khadafy abandoned anti-U.S. rhetoric and even condemned the Sept. 11 attacks. But old habits are hard to break.

When the Scots released the Lockerbie bomber from jail, Khadafy outraged the already incensed relatives of the dead by welcoming him home as a hero.

Now Khadafy has it in for the Swiss because they had the nerve to bust his thug son Hannibal for beating two servants with a belt and a coat hanger in a Geneva hotel.