I was both relieved and pleased to see over the weekend that Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi has announced that he is giving up his country’s weapons of mass destruction and will close down its nuclear development program. After two decades of being an international pariah, Gaddafi appears ready to rejoin the international community.
To put it mildly, this is excellent news. Libya said it will “immediately and unconditionally” allow weapons inspectors into the country to oversee the dismantling of its WMDs. The announcement came after a series of secret negotiations that have been ongoing for nine months.
Bush said in a statement, “Leaders who abandon the pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them will find an open path to better relations with the United States and other free nations.” Bush added, “Libya can regain a secure and respected place among the nations, and over time, achieve far better relations with the United States.”
It’s hard to criticize the announcement, the negotiations, or the outcome, so I won’t try. This is actually one of those efforts that does help make the world safer.
I am, however, confused about the Bush administration’s approach to foreign policy. I can appreciate that different nations need to be approach in different fashions, but I’m looking for a sense of coherence from this administration and I just can’t find one.
Let’s take off the names of the countries and leaders and look at these situations in the abstract:
a) A country is led by a ruthless dictator who ordered an attack on a commercial airplane that killed 270 innocent people. This madman is one of a very small number of people to actually use chemical weapons during combat, admits that he continues to have WMDs, and has defied the international community by developing a nuclear weapons program.
b) Another country is led by another ruthless dictator who starves his own people, has ties to terrorists around the world, and has developed nuclear weapons capable — some believe — of hitting U.S. soil.
c) A third country is led by yet another ruthless dictator. He has tortured his enemies, has started unprovoked wars with neighboring countries, and once used WMDs against his own people, though many believe his WMDs were destroyed by U.S. attacks years ago.
Three tyrants, three countries, three different responses from the Bush administration.
Obviously, “a” is Ghadafi in Libya, “b” is Kim Jung Il in North Korea, and “c” is Saddam Hussein in Iraq. But how does the Bush administration react to these three situations? Bush is willing to negotiate with Libya, but not North Korea or Iraq. Bush wants international cooperation Libya and North Korea, but not Iraq. Bush insists on military force for Iraq, but rules it out for North Korea. Bush rewards Libya for allowing weapons inspectors back into the country, ignores Iraq’s willingness to do the same, and seems indifferent to North Korea’s decision to expel inspectors from its country all together.
As the Center for American Progress noted today, Dick Cheney said over the weekend that the president has given him the responsibility of “making sure that none of the tyrannies in the world are negotiated with. We don’t negotiate with evil; we defeat it.” That’s great, Dick, but didn’t the administration just negotiate with Ghadafi for nearly a year over his WMDs? And isn’t Libya led by a tyrant with WMDs who has used them in the past?
I know there’s a lot of talk about the “Bush Doctrine” — which apparently is the use of unilateral, preemptive force whenever Bush feels like it — but there’s no real unifying doctrine guiding the administration’s policies. Sometimes the administration believes in diplomacy, other times not. Sometimes negotiating is good, sometimes it’s bad. Sometimes we’ll negotiate bilaterally, sometimes only unilaterally. Force will never be ruled out, except for the times it is ruled out. We won’t “coddle” dictators, unless we want to.
I’m certainly glad Bush didn’t decide to launch yet another preemptive strike — this time against a country that actually has WMDs — in the Middle East, but I can’t help but wonder when the administration will actually craft a coherent approach to foreign policy.