I wonder how many people remember today that the United States (under Ronald Reagon) bombed Tripoli at the height of our attempt to overthrow Moammar Gadhafi, killing his adopted daughter in the attempt? Libya (via Gadhafi) was associated with of some of the most horrendous terrorist events of the 1970s and ’80s, including the bombing of PanAm flight 103 that exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, the massacre at the Munich Olympics, the Berlin disco bombing — and many other events.
Today, the US has reestablished formal ties and recognition of Libya (CNN):
The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Libya and remove the North African country from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, the State Department announced Monday.
The removal from the terrorism list is expected to take place after a 45-day waiting period.
“We are taking these actions in recognition of Libya’s continued commitment to its renunciation of terrorism and the excellent cooperation Libya has provided to the United States and other members of the international community in response to common global threats faced by the civilized world since September 11, 2001,” said a statement from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
And you thought some folks never change.
For nearly ten years, Gadhafi has made enormous effort to move Libya out of the shadows and back into the international community. Given his history, one might be inclined to wonder why (from Wikipedia):
There are many explanations for the change of Gaddafi’s politics. The most obvious is that the once very rich Libya became much less wealthy as oil prices dropped significantly during the 1990’s. Since then, Gaddafi has tended to need other countries more than before and hasn’t been able to dole out generous foreign aid as he once did. In this environment, the increasingly stringent sanctions placed by the UN and US on Libya made it more and more isolated politically and economically. Another possibility is that strong Western reactions have forced Gaddafi into changing his politics. It is also possible that realpolitik changed Gaddafi. His ideals and aims did not materialize: there never was any Arab unity, the various armed revolutionary organizations he supported did not achieve their goals, and the demise of the Soviet Union left Gaddafi’s main symbolic target, the United States, stronger than ever.
Regardless of the “why”, the reality is that he’s met every demand (and then some), and Polimom thinks this move by the US is excellent.
In this War on Terrorism, one can’t just wield sticks; we need to hand out carrots, too.