Colonel Moammar Gadhafi is like a cartoon character who just won’t disappear. When the Libyan leader visited Italy recently, his rhetoric and questionable logic was again a source of comic relief to the international community.

In a speech he gave in Rome, Gadhafi told his Italian audience that Europe should convert to Islam, the “ultimate religion.” He later met with a few hundred young Italian women – hired by an agency – and handed them copies of the Koran. The coverage that Gadhafi received in the international media pointed to the irony of his lecturing Europeans on moral issues while human rights violations in Libya continue unabated. This only added to the opprobrium surrounding the Libyan leader.

The last thing Europe needs is a morality lecture by a failed leader whose behavior is often described as mentally challenged and ethically deficient. Gadhafi has become a laughingstock all over world because of his peculiar behavior.

The infamous “tent’ that he demands in every city he visits is a source of continuous ridicule, while his incoherent ramblings before the United Nations and his confrontational attitude at Arab League summit meetings have made him more a source of entertainment than a leader who addresses serious policy issues. In the Arab world, many watch his speeches on television solely to get a good laugh.

The real tragedy here is that the Libyan people are disenfranchised and ridiculed globally, compliments of their leader, while their natural resources are being depleted for non-developmental purposes and their human rights are totally curtailed.

This is indeed a Libyan tragedy.

Since 1969, when President Barack Obama was eight years old, Gadhafi has ruled over Libya. The results of his leadership have been regressive and dismal for the oil-rich nation and its people, both present and future. Although Libya has the highest per capita GDP of any nation in Africa, most of its citizens have not benefited from the nation’s oil revenues. It is estimated that 30 percent of Libyans are unemployed today.

Instead, Gadhafi, his family, and his cronies have squandered precious resources to purchase military hardware and to promote terrorism in the Arab world and beyond. The senseless murder of the passengers on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, is just one example of such behavior.

One can only dream of the benefits to long-term development of the Libyan people if the resources used for weaponry and terrorism had been invested in education and national infrastructure. Yet the physically healthy Gadhafi, who is 68 years old, will likely remain in place to watch more American presidents come and go.

The behavior of the Libyan leader in the international arena also sharply diminishes Arab standing around the world at a time when Arabs and Muslims need all the public relations help they can get. Gadhafi’s behavior in Italy only detracted from many far more legitimate regional Arab issues such as the plight of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and the economic challenges in many Arab nations. How can we expect European or American observers to take the Arab and Muslim worlds seriously when someone like Gadhafi is portrayed as the poster child of Arab leadership?

As Americans still debate the construction of an Islamic center near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, Gadhafi’s behavior, like the images from his Italian visit as well as his calls that Europe convert to Islam, only give ammunition to opponents of the project. Gadhafi is a bad ambassador for Islam, for the Arab world, and for Libya. If retirement is not an option for him anytime soon, for Gadhafi to remain quietly at home in Libya would be the best second alternative.

About 150 years ago, the American president, Abraham Lincoln, said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test man’s character, give him power.” The wisdom of this quote has stood the test of time and resonates in Libya today. For more than 40 years, the country has been led by a leader whose character has been repeatedly tested and has repeatedly failed.

Like many Arab leaders, Gadhafi is grooming one of his sons to take over power – a frequent occurrence in the region. One only hopes that the son is more enlightened than the cartoon he grew up watching.

Raja Kamal is a senior associate dean at the Harris School for Public Policy Studies of the University of Chicago.  He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.