I find Qaddafi (or whatever the spelling du jour) to be one of the more intriguing world leaders today. As I imagine you know, he rose to power at age 27 as a quasi-Marxist firebrand. The point being, he had plenty of 'political evolution' still before him, unlike many world leaders. It seems to me that he's changed considerably during the interim 37 years, and lately he seems to be a curious blend of realpolitik and idealism. That, and he's eccentric as hell..
Qadaffi HAS changed. I know a lot of folks on FR say everything he does is a trick, but it was clear some time ago that he was opening the doors to things NO tricky dictator woulld ever allow us to see, not to mention destroying his relationships with the countries that sold it to him.
It is hard to know why this change happened; issues that come to mind are major medical issues (mortality), death in immediate family/friends, a progressive change which finally translated into a major policy shift, and even his own reaction to what is going on in radical islam today, which is an order of magnitude more disturbing than the terrorism he was invovled in - it is not unfair to say taht his terror-related actions are small-time compared to the scale and nature of what is going on today, and it may be that the role of terrorist organizations today has left HIM behind. He may also be concerned about succession or what could happen in his country after he is dead. This media thing is curious; this is more than just throwing in the towel on WMD.
He also knows that at some point a major western city may be hit with an NBC attack and he wants to be as far away from blame as possible, but private media doens't seem to have much to do with that.
Wasn't he a non-drinking buddy with Billy Carter, Jimmuh Carter's brother?