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August 20, 2003
Newsday
After 15 years of diplomatic wrangling, Libya has finally agreed to pay $2.7 billion to the families of the 270 victims of the Lockerbie bombing. The conclusion of this saga indicates an even more momentous development, namely Moammar Gadhafi's acceptance of international norms. It is time for the Bush administration to proclaim victory and begin the process of reintegrating the reforming rogue back into the community of nations.
In the years since he assumed power in 1969, Gadhafi has supported a wide variety of terrorist organizations and insurgencies that shared his disdain for the international order and its primary guardian, the United States. Thus, the Lockerbie bombing was part of Libya's prolonged involvement in the practice of terrorism.
But a decade of multilateral sanctions and international isolation began to affect even this militant revolutionary, and led him gradually to abandon terrorism as a policy instrument. Even before this latest step, Gadhafi had begun distancing himself from his erstwhile terrorist allies, severing ties with radical Palestinian groups and closing the once-notorious camps that trained a generation of terrorists.
Unlike many of his counterparts, the Libyan strongman viewed the post-9/11 war on terrorism as an opportunity to refurbish his image. The colonel condemned the attacks unequivocally, and Libya soon began cooperating with the United States by furnishing intelligence on the Libyan Fighting Islamic Group, a terrorist organization with links to Osama bin Laden.
This is more than mere tactics; Gadhafi's recent rhetoric and behavior hint at a genuine ideological conversion. The collapse of the Soviet Union, a growing interest in Africa and an emerging disdain for Arab politics led him to offer a new vision for his restive nation. In a September 2000 speech commemorating the Libyan revolution, the colonel not only proclaimed the end of his anti-imperialist struggle but also suggested that it was time for cooperation with former antagonists. "Now is the era of economy, consumption, markets and investments. This is what unites people irrespective of language, religion and national identities," proclaimed Gadhafi to his startled audience.
Washington has viewed this apparent transformation with understandable skepticism. Beyond terrorism, the United States also has concerns about Gadhafi's weapons-of-mass-destruction programs and his influence peddling in Africa.
But the former issue seems overblown. With poor technological infrastructure and its sole nuclear facility - an aging Soviet-made research reactor - operating under supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Libya represents a minimal threat to nuclear nonproliferation regimes. On the more vexing issue of chemical weapons, Gadhafi has intimated a desire to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention and should be pressed to do so.
The Libyan leader's African adventurism represents a more intricate problem. The United States views Libya's assistance to a variety of African autocrats as evidence of its "destructive role in perpetuating regional conflicts."
But in seeking allies and commercial advantage across the continent, Gadhafi has exerted constructive influences in some places, mediating regional crises and offering development aid in order to gain influence with dubious African leaders. Toward this end, the colonel has sought to resolve the conflicts in Congo, Sudan and the Horn of Africa, and was instrumental in crafting the 1999 cease-fire accord between Uganda and Congo. Although his efforts are often quixotic - for example, his proposed United States of Africa - his policy reflects a shift from one of relentless confrontation to a recognition of the possibilities of cooperation.
It is clear that Gadhafi's Africa policy is motivated more by economic opportunism than ideological militancy. He has aided the authoritarian president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, and recently ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor as a means of gaining access to their countries' valuable mining, agricultural and tourism industries. In the end, however, Libya's part in initiating or prolonging these conflicts is relatively minor, and it is dwarfed by the direct influence wielded by the continent's true power brokers, South Africa and Nigeria. More to the point, a sustained U.S. commitment to Africa would prove the most effective counter to Libya's efforts.
Rather than perpetuating its policy beyond its useful purpose, Washington should acknowledge that the U.S.-led campaign to change Libyan policy has accomplished its original aims. Given that Libya is no longer a state sponsor of terrorism, it should be formally removed from the terrorism list. Such a gesture would signal to other recalcitrant regimes that their isolation is not immutable and that abandoning terrorism can abolish the opprobrium that comes with being branded an outlaw state.
In the age of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the world cannot accept Gadhafi's renunciation of them at face value. But, instead of maintaining unilateral sanctions, Washington should propose the phased establishment of diplomatic and trade ties in exchange for Libya's full compliance with all nonproliferation treaties.
The final Lockerbie compensation offer marked the triumph of a deliberate American policy pursued by three successive administrations. A Libyan state that once served as a model of how to deal with rogue states can now serve as a model of how to deal with a revolutionary regime weary of its isolation and ostracism.
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