Behind the grisly images of Muammar Qaddafi's last moments on Thursday, Oct. 20, a quiet contest is afoot between the US and at least two NATO allies, France and Germany, over the credit for his termination and the ending of the alliance's military role in Libya. The episode demonstrated that in the Middle East and North Africa, the Western allies have no compunctions about terminating dictatorships abruptly nor about liberated societies shifting to fundamentalist Islamic regimes committed to Sharia law.