Libya: Amazing foreign policy flip-flop
Full diplomatic relations announced; We undertake a 20-yr review; Judith Miller surfaces
There should be no mystery to readers of Deep Blade Journal about the underlying truths of the great rapprochement between the Bush foreign policy establishment and Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. This is all really about the 36-gigabarrel oil province underneath Libya and Qaddafi's willingness to abandon nearly four decades of anti-US state control thereof in order to join the neoliberal fold. More about that in a bit.
But first let's note that all administration rhetoric, most mainstream reporting, and virtually all major-paper opinion pieces point to Libya ``coming clean'' about its infant clandestine weapons programs as it cowered under the possible hammer of Iraq-like treatment.
Funny how on the day after President Bush announces restoration of full diplomatic relations with Libya--``in recognition of Libya's continued commitment to its renunciation of terrorism'', according to Secretary of State Rice--former New York Times Iraq weapons propagandist Judith Miller resurfaces with a Wall Street Journal opinion-page piece on the ``complex surrender of Libya's WMD''.
Furthermore, the White House has posted a declaration ending the last remaining sanctions against Libya:Memorandum for the Secretary of State on Rescission of Libya's Designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism
Seemingly in concert, Judith Miller purports to get to the bottom of the whole matter from close to the horse's mouth, as if to reinforce the notion of a great Bush counter-terror and intelligence triumph:
Presidential Determination No. 2006-14
May 12, 2006
SUBJECT: Certification on Rescission of Libya's Designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism
Pursuant to the Constitution and laws of the United States, including section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and consistent with section 6(j)(4)(B) of the Export Administration Act of 1979, Public Law 96-72, as amended (50 U.S.C. App. 2405(j)), and as continued in effect by Executive Order 13222 of August 17, 2001, I hereby certify, with respect to the rescission of the determination of December 29, 1979, regarding Libya, that:
(i) the Government of Libya has not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding 6-month period, and
(ii) the Government of Libya has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future.
This certification shall also satisfy the provisions of section 620A(c)(2) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, Public Law 87-195, as amended (22 U.S.C. 2371(c)), and section 40(f)(1)(B) of the Arms Export Control Act, Public Law 90-629, as amended (22 U.S.C. 2780(f)).
You are authorized and directed to report this certification and the attached memorandum justifying the rescission to the Congress and to arrange for their publication in the Federal Register.
GEORGE W. BUSHCol. Gadhafi's hip, 34-year-old son, Saif-al-Islam, told me in Vienna--where he earned an M.B.A. and lives when he's not carrying out tasks for his father, or studying for a doctorate in political philosophy at the London School of Economics--that his father changed course because he had to. "Overnight we found ourselves in a different world," said Saif, referring to the Sept. 11 attacks. "So Libya had to redesign its policies to cope with these new realities."
There is more to it
But a review of confidential government records and interviews with current and former officials in London, Tripoli, Vienna and Washington suggest that other factors were involved. Prominent among them is a heretofore undisclosed intelligence coup--the administration's decision in late 2003 to give Libyan officials a compact disc containing intercepts of a conversation about Libya's nuclear weapons program between Libya's nuclear chief and A.Q. Khan--that reinforced Col. Gadhafi's decision to reverse course on WMD.
Judith Miller, and Secretary Rice too, should be more careful readers of The Wall Street Journal. The paper ran in April a news story that explains the impetus behind this administration move in favor of Libya and it's investors much more completely:Business Group Pressures U.S. To Take Libya Off Terrorism List
Darn, that 3% licensing surcharge was just such a deal-breaker, just not worth the meager human rights leverage the last vestiges of Reaganite punishment of Libya may have provided.
By MASOOD FARIVAR
April 11, 2006; Page A12
A business group is pressuring the State Department to strike oil-rich Libya from its list of nations that sponsor terrorism, arguing that U.S. officials are keeping it on the list for human-rights reasons. The U.S.'s annual list of "state sponsors of terrorism" is expected to continue to include Libya when it is released at the end of the month. The U.S. lifted two-decades-old sanctions in late 2004 after Libya dismantled its weapons-of-mass-destruction program and forswore support for international terrorist groups. But the State Department has kept it on the list, citing "outstanding questions over its residual contacts with some past terrorist clients," and officials said they don't have a set timeline for taking Libya off the list.
Its presence on the list makes moving technology in and out of the country more costly and difficult. For example, U.S. companies have to pay what amounts to a 3% surcharge to get a special license from the U.S. Treasury Department to export goods with potential military as well as business applications to Libya, said David Goldwyn, executive director of the Washington-based US-Libya Business Association.
The group argues Libya's presence has everything to do with questions over Libyan political and human-rights behavior, not terrorism. "Libya has done everything that the U.S. government has asked of it with respect to both the cessation of any actions concerning terrorism as well as the dismantlement of its [weapons-of-mass-destruction] program," Mr. Goldwyn said.
Libya remains on the list primarily for human-rights reasons, former government officials say. Libya's detention of seven Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor accused of deliberately infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV has caused an international uproar, and questions linger over whether the Libyan government was directly involved in a 2004 plot to assassinate then-Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.
In recent months, the US-Libya Business Association has met with administration officials as well as members of Congress in a bid to have Libya removed from the list. The group represents 11 U.S. companies, including the Oasis Group -- a consortium comprising Marathon Oil Corp., ConocoPhillips and Amerada Hess Corp. -- that returned to Libya's vast hydrocarbon resources in January after a two-decade absence.
Libya, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, had 36 billion barrels of proved oil reserves -- the world's eighth-largest -- and 45.5 trillion cubic feet of natural-gas reserves in January 2005, underscoring its importance in a world increasingly thirsty for oil.
Unlike Iran and Syria, Libya isn't explicitly accused of sponsoring foreign terrorist groups. In its 2005 report, the State Department praised Libya's cooperation in the global war against terror.
Michael Kraft, an independent analyst and formerly a congressional aide involved in the list's creation, said the list itself isn't an end goal. Rather, it is a tool to try to change a country's behavior.
Taking Libya off the list ``is a judgment call about how much political capital the administration is willing to expend or whether it wants to keep residual leverage with the country to deal with other problems,'' said Mr. Kraft, who also served as senior adviser in the State Department's office of the coordinator for counterterrorism.
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President Bush, flip-flopper
As long-time readers of Deep Blade Journal know, the case of the great Libya-Iraq foreign policy flip-flop is one of the most instructive episodes of US diplomatic history. Let's review...
The 20-year-long sanctions regime against Libya that finally was completely removed this week by President was established in 1986. Back then, President Reagan referred to Qadhafi as a ``subversive'' who is "not only an enemy of the United States", but also has a "record of subversion and aggression against the neighboring States in Africa".
On January 7, 1986, following terrorist shootings at airports in Rome and Vienna, President Reagan pushed the Libya panic button. His letter to Congress laid out a decision to declare a ``national emergency'' based on section 204(b) of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. In effect, this declaration prohibited purchases and imports from and exports to Libya; banned U.S.-Libya maritime and aviation relations; banned trade in services relating to projects in Libya; banned credits or loans or the transfer of anything of value to Libya or its nationals; and prohibited transactions relating to travel by Americans to or in Libya.
President Reagan wrote,I have authorized these steps in response to the emergency situation created by international terrorism, in this instance the actions and policies of the Government of Libya. Its use and support of terrorism against the United States, other countries, and innocent persons violate international law and minimum standards of human behavior. These Libyan actions and policies constitute a threat to the security of the United States as well as the international community. Our Nation's security includes the security of its citizens and their right freely to go about their lives at home and abroad. Libyan use of and support for terrorism also constitute a threat to the vital foreign policy interests of the United States and of all other states dedicated to international peace and security.
Later, in April 1986 following the Tripoli bombing raid, President Reagan told the country, ``Before Qadhafi seized power in 1969, the people of Libya had been friends of the United States. And I'm sure that today most Libyans are ashamed and disgusted that this man has made their country a synonym for barbarism around the world. The Libyan people are a decent people caught in the grip of a tyrant''.
Qadhafi's support for an April 5, 1986 bombing at the La Belle discotheque in Berlin, an act that killed two American military personnel, constituted ``monstrous brutality [that] is but the latest act in Colonel Qadhafi's reign of terror''.
President Reagan used this demonization to justify an April 14, 1986 bombing raid on Tripoli intended to kill Qadhafi. He escaped, but his one-month old daughter was killed in the American attack.
The state of emergency with respect to Libya declared in 1986 remained in effect until President Bush recinded it in April 2004.
Iraq policy, 1986
Now let's take a look at how the Saddam Hussein government in Iraq was being treated at about the same time as Libya was being demonized and bombed by the US in 1986.
At this time, the clandestine US policy of sending weapons to Iran became the Iran-Contra affair. But a largely untold story of these years is US support for Saddam, despite Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran during the then-in-full-horror Iran-Iraq war. According to released internal documents, even though quiet objections were communicated to Iraq, US policymakers preferred to advance the US-Iraq business relationship rather than press Saddam on thousands of deaths through poison gas.
The relevant documents are available from the National Security Archive concerning Donald Rumsfeld's March 1984 trip to Iraq and meeting with high officials, including Saddam. In a cable to Rumsfeld, US Secretary of State George Shultz and Undersecretary Laurence Eagleburger tried to reassure Iraq's Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Ismet Kittani that they wanted to keep the relationship on track.
According to the March 24, 1984 briefing document, ``They clarified that our CW (chemical weapons) condemnation was made strictly out of our strong opposition to the use of lethal and incapacitating CW, wherever it occurs''.
``They emphasised that our interests in (1) preventing an Iranian victory and (2) continuing to improve bilateral relations with Iraq, at a pace of Iraq's choosing, remain undiminished.''
The document goes on to discuss the shaky creditworthiness of Iraq with respect to the Bechtel Corporation's proposed Aqaba Pipeline, a project in which Shultz had an interest as a former Bechtel high executive.
Fast forward two years. In March 1986, at exactly the time Libya had become a ``national emergency'', the United States quietly prevented the United Nations Security Council from passing a resolution condemning Iraq's use of chemical arms after the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives in the grizzly Iran-Iraq war. Toothless UNSCR 522 passed on February 24, 1986. But when it came time for specific condemnation of Iraq, the US balked.
Pan Am 103
With respect to terrorism, the most troubling issue has been Libya's involvement in the December 21, 1988 downing of Pan Am Flight 103. This is a very complex story, well explained in a penetrating 2000 American Radio Works documentary. A Scottish court entered a guilty verdict against one Libyan agent in 2002 while acquitting another.
Libya clearly was not the only actor associated with this act of terrorism. However, Libya in 2003 accepted responsibility for the actions of its officials and paid compensation to the victims' families. UN sanctions were then lifted on September 12, 2003. Judith Miller writes that the final push for this Libyan acceptance (along with acknowledgement by Libya that it possessed banned weapons) came, according to ``Libyans close to the Gadhafi family'', because ``after Saddam Hussein's sons were killed in a shootout with U.S. soldiers in Mosul in July 2003, Safiya, Col. Gadhafi's wife, angrily demanded that he do more to ensure that Saif and her other sons would not share a similar fate.''
There you have some good raw meat for the foreign-policy-by-murder-works crowd. But who would the US have to kill in order to scare Osama bin Laden into coming back under its wing?
Are we dizzy yet?
So US demonization versus US support for Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi and Saddam Hussein have flip-flopped completely since 1986. The policies are incoherent if taken at face value. The rhetoric is good for swelling the reactionary emotions present in the US public when certain actions must be taken at certain times, or when public attention needs to be distracted -- but it is not so good for explaining the inevitable policy shifts as time goes on. For that, our officials depend on us having short attention spans.
The real, underlying policies are always hidden, sometimes in full view. It is very, very easy, for example, with just a little digging, to trace the real reasons behind both 20 years of Iraq policy, and 20 years of Libya policy. Here are a couple additional of the occasional news stories that appear sometimes illuminate the Libya situation, like the April 11 Wall Street Journal item cited above.Libya Tempts Executives With Big Oil Reserves
And,
By JAD MOUAWAD; New York Times; January 2, 2005
TRIPOLI, Libya - For the first time in a decade, a new oil territory is opening up. Reopening, that is.
American oil executives have recently been flocking to Libya, crowding the lobby of Tripoli's only luxury hotel and literally standing in line to meet local officials. The executives are bent on finding out whether this oil-rich North African country - long walled off from foreign investment because of its anti-American regime and ties to terrorist organizations - could become the next frontier for exploration.
What the petroleum crowd is after lies hundreds of miles south of this enclave founded by Phoenician traders in the seventh century B.C., beneath a desert the size of Alaska that holds oil reserves estimated at over 36 billion barrels. That is enough to meet the daily imports of the United States for eight years.West beats a path to forgive Libya its pariah status
So, much as is the case in Iraq, that other energy-rich country now turned into US subsidiary, return of Libya to the neoliberal fold is of such delight to US executives and policymakers that all earlier terrorism and human rights hyperbole rapidly has been abandoned.
By Michael Binyon; Times of London; January 18, 2005
Gaddafi's volte-face is for real
COLONEL GADDAFI’S promise to abandon the pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons has opened the door to a country that has been shunned by the outside world. Suddenly, after 35 years of socialism, revolutionary rhetoric and isolation, Libya is welcoming back the West.
Since Gaddafi’s pledge in December 2003, hundreds of oil executives, architects, lawyers and bankers from Europe and America have been flocking to Tripoli in the hope of contracts as Libya races to catch up for lost time. After a year when everything changed, Libya is poised for the breakthrough.
Many Libyans have difficulty comprehending the scope of Gaddafi’s volte-face. It is not just that their leader has scrapped development of all weapons of mass destruction; he has also abandoned Arab socialism, admitting that his vision of a paternalist state bringing wealth to every Libyan is unachievable and that state control of the economy has been a shambles, with corruption, bureaucracy and shortages the only result.
But the turnaround is real, and is being spearheaded by Shukri al-Ghanem, the Harvard-educated Prime Minister, who preaches privatisation, encourages foreign investment and wants to scrap bureaucratic controls. Libya is calling home its exiles, sending its students to the West and welcoming Europeans to its capital.
In the end, a history of terrorism and use of horrid weapons by tyrants is far less important than the quiet policies that advance oil and other commercial interests.
