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The killing of Muammar Gaddafi exactly a year ago—on Oct. 20, 2011—ended the world’s longest dictatorship, and this week, Libya’s first freely elected government in decades appointed its new Prime Minister, Ali Zeidan. Zeidan should expect no easy ride: Libya’s feisty new media sites and television channels have spent the past year lambasting the new leaders for their poor performance—just the kind of criticisms that would have earned journalists years in prison under Gaddafi’s 42-year rule. For sure, Libya is violent and chaotic. But it is finally free.  “There is progress,” says Ali Tarhouni, one of the leaders of last year’s revolution, by phone from Tripoli. “After all, Gaddafi is dead. This ‘mad dog’ is gone.”

Yet while Gaddafi lies...