Dr. Ivan Eland, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at the Independent Institute on Hard-line U.S. Foreign Policy: Symbolic Gain, Real Pain
Lately, the Bush administration and its neo-conservative supporters have been crowing about how President Bush’s hard-line foreign policy caused Muammar Qaddafi to end his unconventional (biological, chemical and nuclear) weapons programs and open them to international inspections. They have also been implying that the tough U.S. policy will continue to make bad regimes capitulate. But the gains from Qaddafi’s abandonment of such programs are mostly symbolic. In contrast, the president’s aggressive foreign policy has made the danger of a terrorist attack greater than at any time since the attacks on September 11, 2001.
Much has been made of the timing of Qaddafi’s first overture to negotiate an end to his unconventional weapons programs — in March of this year, shortly before the United States invaded Iraq. Although the imminent U.S. invasion may have prompted Qaddafi’s feelers to bargain away his weapons efforts, Qaddafi has been trying to mend fences with the United States and the West for a decade. Five years ago, he turned over two Libyans for trial in the terrorist bombing of flight Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988; recently, he agreed to pay reparations for the incident. British Prime Minister Tony Blair admitted that Qaddafi’s disarmament initiative arose from the success of those negotiations. Also, for several years Libya has eschewed terrorist attacks. And it is probably no coincidence that negotiations to end Libyan unconventional weapons programs accelerated only after the United States agreed to allow the United Nations to end economic sanctions against Libya. Qaddafi most likely wanted to see some gains from his years of efforts to reconcile with the West before he made any more concessions.
Read the rest of Dr. Eland's article here.