"The primary threat to Gaddafi over time was internal, nukes would not have protected him. What was he going to do, nuke his own territory? The same was true for Assad."

Have you checked, how many outside interventions both countries had and still have?

Labelling this as "internal" is pretty missleading. If both dictators would have had nuclear weapons ready to launch, no foreign bomber would have dared going in against the regime.

> That's not what would happen in reality at all. Don't take my word for it, ask Pakistan: the US threatened to bomb them [0] - despite their possession of nukes - after 9/11 if they didn't cooperate. Why would the US do that? Because the US knows that MAD doesn't work like the online armchair crowd thinks it does.

That isn't a MAD situation.

Pakistan has nukes but they can't launch them on the US.