[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