[lbo-talk] NYT Op Ed: Why Libya Gave Up on the Bomb

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri Jan 23 04:40:35 PST 2004


[By ex-Bush State Department guy]

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/opinion/23LEVE.html

The New York Times January 23, 2004

Why Libya Gave Up on the Bomb

By FLYNT LEVERETT

As President Bush made clear in his State of the Union address, he

sees the striking developments in relations with Libya as the fruit of

his strategy in the war on terrorism. The idea is that Col. Muammar

el-Qaddafi's apparent decision to renounce weapons of mass destruction

was a largely a result of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, which thus

retroactively justifies the war in Iraq and holds out the prospect of

similar progress with other states that support terrorists, seek

weapons of mass destruction and brutalize their own people.

However, by linking shifts in Libya's behavior to the Iraq war, the

president misrepresents the real lesson of the Libyan case. This

confusion undermines our chances of getting countries like Iran and

Syria to follow Libya's lead.

The roots of the recent progress with Libya go back not to the eve of

the Iraq war, but to the Bush administration's first year in office.

Indeed, to be fair, some credit should even be given to the second

Clinton administration. Tired of international isolation and economic

sanctions, the Libyans decided in the late 1990's to seek normalized

relations with the United States, and held secret discussions with

Clinton administration officials to convey that message. The Clinton

White House made clear that no movement toward better relations was

possible until Libya met its responsibilities stemming from the

downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.

These discussions, along with mediation by the Saudi ambassador to the

United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, produced a breakthrough:

Libya turned over two intelligence officers implicated in the Pan Am

103 attack to the Netherlands for trial by a Scottish court, and in

1999 Washington acquiesced to the suspension of United Nations

sanctions against Libya.

Then, in the spring of 2001, when I was a member of the State

Department's policy planning staff, the Bush administration picked up

on those discussions and induced the Libyans to meet their remaining

Lockerbie obligations. With our British colleagues, we presented the

Libyans with a "script" indicating what they needed to do and say to

satisfy our requirements on compensating the families of the Pan Am

103 victims and accepting responsibility for the actions of the Libyan

intelligence officers implicated in the case.

We also put an explicit quid pro quo on the table: if Libya met the

conditions we laid out, the United States and Britain would allow

United Nations sanctions to be lifted permanently. This script became

the basis for three-party negotiations to resolve the Lockerbie issue.

By early 2003, after a Scottish appeals court upheld the conviction of

one of the Libyan intelligence officers, it was evident that our

approach would bear fruit. Indeed, Washington allowed the United

Nations sanctions against Libya to be removed last summer after Libya

reached a compensation agreement with the Pan Am 103 families and

accepted responsibility for its officials' actions.

But during these two years of talks, American negotiators consistently

told the Libyans that resolving the Lockerbie situation would lead to

no more than elimination of United Nations sanctions. To get out from

under the separate United States sanctions, Libya would have to

address other concerns, particularly regarding its programs in weapons

of mass destruction.

This is the context in which Libyan officials approached the United

States and Britain last spring to discuss dismantling Libya's weapons

program. The Iraq war, which had not yet started, was not the driving

force behind Libya's move. Rather, Libya was willing to deal because

of credible diplomatic representations by the United States over the

years, which convinced the Libyans that doing so was critical to

achieving their strategic and domestic goals. Just as with Lockerbie,

an explicit quid pro quo was offered: American officials indicated

that a verifiable dismantling of Libya's weapons projects would lead

the removal our own sanctions, perhaps by the end of this year.

The lesson is incontrovertible: to persuade a rogue regime to get out

of the terrorism business and give up its weapons of mass destruction,

we must not only apply pressure but also make clear the potential

benefits of cooperation. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has

refused to take this approach with other rogue regimes, notably Iran

and Syria. Until the president is willing to employ carrots as well as

sticks, he will make little headway in changing Iranian or Syrian

behavior.

The president's lack of initiative on this point is especially

disappointing because, in the diplomatic aftermath of the Sept. 11

attacks, the administration has a singular opportunity to effect

strategic realignments by both Iran and Syria. Well-placed Iranians,

including more pragmatic elements of Iran's conservative camp, have

indicated through diplomatic channels and to former officials

(including myself) their interest in a "grand bargain" with the United

States. Basically, Tehran would trade off its ties to terrorist groups

and pursuit of nuclear weapons for security guarantees, a lifting of

sanctions and normalized relations with Washington.

Likewise, senior Syrian officials including President Bashar al-Assad

himself, in a conversation in Damascus last week have told me that

they want a better strategic understanding with the United States. To

achieve this, however, Washington needs to be willing to spell out

what Syria would get in return for giving up its ties to terrorists

and its chemical weapons and ballistic missiles. As Mr. Assad told me,

Syria is "a state, not a charity" if it gives up something, it must

know what it will gain in return.

One reason the Bush administration was able to take a more

constructive course with Libya was that the White House,

uncharacteristically, sidelined the administration's neoconservative

wing which strongly opposes any offer of carrots to state sponsors of

terrorism, even when carrots could help end such problematic behavior

when crucial decisions were made. The initial approach on the

Lockerbie case was approved by an informal coalition made up of

Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, and Secretary of

State Colin Powell. Likewise, in the lead up to the negotiations

involving Libyan weapons of mass destruction, the neoconservatives at

the Pentagon and in the shop of Under Secretary of State John Bolton

were left out of the loop.

Perhaps a coalition among members of the State Department's bureau of

Near Eastern affairs and the National Security Council's more

pragmatic elements can chart a similar course involving Iran and

Syria. However, until the administration learns the real lessons of

the Libyan precedent, policy toward other rogue regimes is likely to

remain stuck in the mud of ideology.

Flynt Leverett, a visiting fellow with the Saban Center for Middle

East Politics at the Brookings Institution, was senior director for

Middle Eastern affairs at the National Security Council from 2002 to

2003.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company



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