As events in Libya began to spiral out of control, it was Qaddafi’s son Saif who went on the air to give a rambling speech that talked of impending civil war and dark conspiratorial forces at work.

I noted yesterday that “Qaddafi’s son Saif is an interesting figure, who was apparently behind a failed drive for reform in Libya a couple of years ago.” The reform, offering greater freedom of speech and the beginnings of democracy in that beleaguered and oppressed and highly tribal country, were rejected by Qaddafi in 2008, and Saif gave a speech at the time in which he announced his retirement from public life.

The question now is: was Saif’s dedication to reform a sham all the time, an attempt to put a modern face on the Qaddafi regime while perpetuating the dynasty? Or was it real? And if the latter, what compelled Saif to be the one to make that speech the other day?

There are those who believe that Saif’s latest speech has ripped the mask off the Qaddafi scion’s pose and revealed him to be a non-reformer in hiding all the while. There are others—including David Held of the London School of Economics, a professor who helped Saif with his doctoral dissertation there (yes, he’s Doctor Saif al-Islam Qaddafi), who says:

The discussions [Held had with Said] were passionate and often “very, very heated…When I first met Saif, he was struggling with himself and his place in the world, in the context of his family. By the end of his time at the LSE, he had discovered a deep commitment to liberal democratic reform of his country.

“The man giving that speech wasn’t the Saif I had got to know well over those years. The Saif I knew will be in turmoil over the beliefs he had to betray in order to demonstrate his support to his father…”

Held remembers Saif as man with a curiosity for knowledge and a huge appetite for reading and learning. “He always wanted to test arguments for his views, always wanted to engage in dialogue,” said Held.

Then there’s this WaPo article from last May, which seems to be conveying that idea that Saif is/was mostly sincere. Contains this:

Gaddafi turned down his father when he offered him the second-most powerful post in the government. “We want to see a constitution to create a more democratic and transparent political game in Libya,” he said. “Until that time, I am not interested in being part of the government.”

Gaddafi’s biggest rivals are his brothers — Mutassim, Libya’s national security adviser, and Khamis, a military commander. Unlike Saif, both reportedly have strong power bases in the military, whose support is essential to hold power, analysts say. Mutassim also appears to be close to the hard-liners who oppose Saif’s reforms.

One potential weapon Saif Gaddafi holds is Libya’s youth. In a nation where an estimated 70 percent of the population is younger than 30, he views himself as the champion of a generation longing for change. “I embody the dream of the young people,” he said.

His popularity is visible on the streets of Tripoli. In cafes, young Libyans openly declare their support for him and credit him with gaining them more freedom to speak openly.

That was then; this is now. If you go to a translation of the full text of Saif’s speech (unofficial, but it’s the only one I could find so far) and study it, you’ll find it a very curious document. Saif talks about a coming civil war and “100,000s of deaths,” but does he threaten such a war or merely warn of it? He talks about reforming Libya, which seems like a transparent lie but is given a sharply ironic twist by his previous seeming commitment to such reforms.

He warns Libyans that tribal struggles and division of the country will ensue, and that Islamicists and/or colonial and other foreign powers (including Arab) will try to take over Libya. This seems another way to manipulate the people into backing off and leaving his father in charge. But then again, who knows who it is who is actually behind the uprising in Libya, which seems to have organized itself unusually quickly, and who knows what the final result will be? He says the killings of the Libyan people resulted from the fact that the army was under stress and unused to crowd control. This seems a very lame excuse, as later events have indicated.

Since Saif gave that speech, the Libyan conflict has escalated. Qaddafi the elder has reiterated the charges against the demonstrators that Said first outlined. Iraqi planes have strafed demonstrators and many more are reported to have died. The fog of war and the lack of outside observers precludes our knowing the details, but suffice to say that it seems very brutal.

So was Saif’s former reputation a good cop bad cop scenario, a fiction designed to disarm? One would think so. But the nagging notion remains that it was real but unheeded, and when everything fell apart Saif decided on family loyalty and going down with his wretched father’s ship. Or perhaps he was threatened and forced by father and brothers to be the face of the regime’s message, due to his previous reputation as the good (or at least better) one.

One thing is certain: therein lies a tale worth telling, although we probably will never hear it. My guess is that if we did, it would sound somewhat like the story of Michael Corleone in the Godfather movies: the son who may have initially aspired to be something better (scholar, war hero), but returned in a time of crisis to family loyalty—and to the family business of graft, power, and murder.