For four decades, Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi has been a ruthless despot, a violently erratic terrorist precursor to Al Qaeda, and a pariah. Now the man who bankrolled Palestinian and other terrorist groups and whose agents infamously bombed a Pan Am passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, and a French UTA jet over the Sahara seems determined to add “war criminal” to the list.

Far from bowing to the Arab awakening, as unpopular leaders in Tunisia and Egypt have done, Gadhafi says he will fight to the “last drop” of blood. In a chilling televised speech on Tuesday he shouted “this is my country, my country.” In a fit of fury he ordered his troops, police and mercenaries to mow down the “rats” who defy his regime. His son, too, has threatened “rivers of blood,” beyond the 300 or more protesters already killed.

As reports surface of warplanes and tanks being turned on civilians, in the most brutal response of any Mideast regime, the United Nations Security Council should serve notice that it will hold Gadhafi and his cronies accountable. The UN should set in motion the machinery to have the International Criminal Court indict him, unless a credible new regime arises that can prosecute.

The self-styled Brother Leader and King of Kings should be no more immune than the Congolese warlords and others who have been indicted for attacking civilians.

This is a cause that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government can usefully take up as the Mideast awakening gathers force. Harper has rightly denounced Gadhafi’s assault on civilians as “outrageous.” Indicting the Arab world’s most durable despot would invite other autocrats to think twice before adopting scorched-earth tactics and slaughtering their people.

The scale of the violence in Libya should chasten policy-makers in Washington, London and elsewhere who reconciled too readily with Gadhafi after the 9/11 attacks and the U.S. invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein. Cowed by America’s fury, Gadhafi co-operated with the U.S. to thwart Al Qaeda, and gave up Libya’s program to develop weapons of mass destruction. He also paid billions in compensation for past acts of terror.

But Gadhafi never softened his domestic tyranny, and now that his people have risen in protest he has cracked down more brutally than others. Libya’s own delegation at the UN has described his response as genocide, and begged the world to intervene. That has fuelled calls for Security Council censure, sanctions, even military intervention.

Whatever the outcome, Gadhafi should be held to account. The world owes that much to those who have died fighting tyranny.

By Special correspondent