News that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is giving up his WMDs has prompted many of Bush’s fans to credit the strength and wisdom of the president’s foreign policy for the good news. Nathanael at I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, a terrific blog, explains that no one should be too quick to praise Bush for the successful negotiations. Nathanael explains:
“Libyan President Moammar Gadhafi has been trying to distance himself from Pan-Arab politics since the mid-1990s. He has seen that it is a destructive politics that have hurt Libya through infighting between the Arab states, and the support of terrorism exposed Libya in ways that Gadhafi regrets. (Not having USSR supplying him with weapons also helped.) His tack has been to withdraw Libya from Pan-Arabism and insert it into the African unity movement. Gadhafi is now one of the most prominent spokesman for African unity, and he was instrumental in getting the North Africa states to join the African Union. To this end, Gadhafi has been attempting to repair his credibility in the world — hence the Lockerbie settlement — and to reach out to other leaders. Drawing closer to former British possessions in Africa gave Tony Blair the opportunity to negotiate with Gadhafi (and for Blair, some leverage in UK-Zimbabwe relations.) The disarming of WMD is simply a natural progression of the currents in international diplomacy.
“According to Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, ‘[T]his is a success that spans administrations and spans governments…. [T]his is something that goes back over 10 years of international pressure on the Qaddafi regime. Over the last six or seven years, Qaddafi has steadily moved towards Europe, waiting to integrate, focused on a program of economic development for Libya.’
“Tony Blair should be congratulated: he took advantage of multilateral diplomacy and the African Union, neither of which the Bush administration supports, in order to achieve disarmament without costly warfare.”
Good points all.
By the way, I’ve seen spellings for Qaddafi, Gadhafi, and Gaddafi. Anyone know which one is the right one?