If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Tripoli
In response to various concessions on weapons programs and inspections by Moammar Gadhafi, the Bush administration has "eased travel and other restrictions" to Libya, reports the WashPost (via The Seattle Times).
As someone who was opposed to the invasion of Iraq and still has mega-doubts about the "region building" talk coming out of the Bush folks and neocons, I have to admit that Gadhafi's shift is clearly linked to Bush's adventurous foreign policy (as are other positive developments throughout the Middle East and the Islamic world). This isn't to sign on to the agenda--it's too early to tell whether the US intervention in Iraq, much less elsewhere, is going to bear sweet or bitter fruit, and there remain tough questions about ends justifying means, etc--but it's clear that US policy is having some beneficial effects.
For more on the tyrant cum terrrorist whose name can be spelled an infinite number of ways, check out Joe Bob Briggs' entertaining and informative piece, "The Q-Man," from the Winter edition of The National Interest.
Update: The folks at American Enterprise Institute give a thumbs down to Bush on Libya, warning "Beware the 'Libyan Model.'"
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Well, people try to portray the Libya issue as an instant change of heart; when it is nothing of the kind. For some time Libya has been trying to get back into the good graces of a number of countries; perhaps the events in Iraq nudged the process along, but it was occuring long before Bush ever entered the White House. This is somewhat typical of politicians though - take the bulk of the credit for things developing before they were in office.
Sounds like a good strategy to me. Instead of Shock and Awe, we can go for regime change with Coke and Mouse. Although, given a choice between letting Disney or the US Marine Corp run my country, I'd take the Marines. At least they don't smile while they're abusing you.
Well joe I'm what you would call a "hardcore" libertarian. So if it makes you feel any better, I feel like post-9/11 I have more in common with leftists than the Bush/neoconservative cabal.
And good point about the Lockerbie settlement.
I always thought that a guy with body guards like that couldn't be all bad.
>it was legal to eat American soldiers since they had been revealed to be animals. He rarely speaks this way anymore--perhaps because his country has just recently returned from the brink of economic collapse, perhaps because he doesn't have to.
It could just be the memory of those cruise missiles we lobbed into his living room a few years ago. Talk about crashing a party...
While it's true that the Q-man has given the Bush folks great PR for a policy success, it's worth noting that it's a pareto-optimization success. Libya gave a up a basically stalled nuclear program, an expensive and ineffectual gas program, and a laughably primitive bioweapons program; in return it got hugely advantageous concessions. The Bush administration gave up some sanctions that had long ago expended their political uselessness, and got a massive apparent policy success. Two parties each trade away things of more value to the other. This is not exactly difficult diplomacy.
So while this is a real success, it's not at all a positive indication for the future. Libya had nothing to lose from cooperating with us; Iran and North Korea do.
I should think N. Korea and Iran would have everything to gain by cooperating with us. Am I wrong? Help me, Grant.
Libya did, however, agree to a mulit-billion$ settlement in the Lockerbie case.
A couple years BEFORE the Iraq war.
It should also be noted that Libya has been working with the US over the last few years to get back on our good side. This news isn't unexpected. Whether or not we invaded Iraq, Libya would probably made the same agreements to rejoin the "global community."
Good points
I have to admit that Gadhafi's shift is clearly linked to Bush's adventurous foreign policy
I see the link but I don't think it's that clear
Before the Bush mafia starts with the joe-hating, I'm not saying there's definately no connection.
Maybe you should change your name, Joe.
joe,
I'm not even in the bush mafia and I hate you. You are a dickus.
Before we all get too involved in not crediting Bush for Biq Q's acts of contrition...
Who was in charge when the US took the (prescient) unilateral action to plug his terrorist butt in 1986? That's right, Ronald Reagan! See? Everything bad in the world is not Bush's fault, but all current good stems from Reagan.
Now where did I put joe's address...?
You know, obvious, some people say that conservatives are libertarians are hard-hearted, cold people. But not you.
You're actually quite emotional.
obvious: His friends call him Biggus.
meanwhile bush tightened travel restrictions on cuba today:
http://www.local10.com/news/2879523/detail.html
so for those keeping score at home... libya and iraq = good, cuba still bad.
mdd
Two things will still be true after November: Bush will still be president and you liberal pussies will still be whining.
"Libya did, however, agree to a mulit-billion$ settlement in the Lockerbie case. A couple years BEFORE the Iraq war."
"It should also be noted that Libya has been working with the US over the last few years to get back on our good side."
"perhaps the events in Iraq nudged the process along, but it was occuring long before Bush ever entered the White House"
What a shame Clinton's foreign policy genius had to wait until 3 years after he left office to manifest itself. Didn't I read that he passed on to the Bush administration his plan to to take out the Taleban too? Of course there wouldn't be an asprin factory or baby formula plant left in the Islamic world if Bush had followed "the Clinton plan". You Democrats still haven't come to grips with the fact that your man was an international fucking disaster, a lying-chickenshit-cad whose most notable foreign policy action was to launch cruise missiles at two foreign countries on the day his impeachment hearing was starting. Hitler had more integrity!
Clinton obviously started the ball rolling on converting the Q-man. I'd bet he turned turtle when he realized anyone who could get blowjobs in the White House can't be all that bad a guy to deal with.
Libs are doing themselves no favors by failing to give credit where it is due.
But, now that Arty has invoked Godwin's law, I guess this thread is over.
jean bartt
"This is somewhat typical of politicians though - take the bulk of the credit for things developing before they were in office."
Even recessions and unemployment?
" The folks at American Enterprise Institute give a thumbs down to Bush on Libya, warning..."
That's it let's keep moving the goal post Bush will never score just when you think he's got it. Ooops, sorry we just moved it agin on ya.
First lesson of international affairs: Quiet, patient back-channel diplomacy, punctuated by wiping certain dictatorship off the face of the earth, works better than quiet, patient back-channel diplomacy alone.
Godwin's Law, indeed, Reid. Libs hating cons; rightwingers hating bleeding hearts; lefties hating Bush; righties hating Clinton. History does not show that any one segment of the political spectrum has ever held a monopoly on useful answers to vexing issues. The best answers have always arisen from people whose wrists aren't bound in ideological rope. Hatefests, such as the minor example seen above, are part of the problem, not part of the solution. To that end, I consider all haters to be sitepests. I could not care less what political faith a sitepest adheres to...right, left, or middle...they all suck.
Arty-
I don't agree with all of your assessment, but the day that Clinton murdered foreigners to delay impeachment I called my Democratic Congresswoman and Senators. I told them that I had changed my mind in favor of impeachment, and that if I wanted somebody who would murder foreigners for political gain I would have voted Republican. From that day I stopped voting the Democrat party line, and started going candidate-by-candidate. Sometimes I vote Republican, sometimes Democrat, but mostly Libertarian.
Arty,
Come on, I don't doubt Clinton pulled a "Wag the Dog" with the bombing of the aspirin factory. But, I fail to see how Bush is any different (other than the fact that he has an "R" and not "D" after his name).
Remember the WMD's? The "imminent threat" posed by Saddam?
They're both liars, Clinton just didn't have the catchy "War on Terror" theme to go along with his foreign adventures.
I concur strongly with "The Sanity Inspector."
It takes both a carrot and a stick to motivate.
Jimmy Carter didn't know know the value of using a stick. Bill Clinton didn't have the resolution to use a stick.
Ronald Reagan knew how to use a stick. George Bush knew how to use a stick. George W. Bush is the master of the stick. He even cleaned up daddy's boo boo in Iraq.
Any fool with access to American tax dollars can use a carrot.
GWB deserves significant credit for making the world a better place for all people to live in.
GWB has significantly advanced libertarian ideals across the globe.
Now if only he would do something to advance libertarian ideals at home...
There is another big side benifit to Dubyas liberal use of the carrot regarding Libya. It shows the Muslim world, contrary to the propaganda of Al Jazera, that the war on terror isn't a 21st century version of the crusades.
The message might not have sunk into the heads of the dictators in the muslim world (they have a vested interest not to listen), but it might be in the minds of that Arab street we use to hear so much about.
Mark Hoover: Here here!
I mayn't like joe's posts, but I try to come up for a valid reason to refute them. Calling him a dick does nothing but give him a feeling of smug self satisfied superiority.
"obvious: His friends call him Biggus."
But he LOOKS like the piss-boy.
Sorry for comparing Clinton for with a madman like Hitler. I was out of line and stand corrected. I meant to commend Nick for swallowing his pride and giving Bush some much-deserved credit for foreign policy success, but when I saw some commentors alluding to Clinton being responsible for reforming Gadhafi, I saw red. If you want to see Clinton's foreign policy at work you only need look at the North Korean situation today and remember that Clinton recieved a non-proliferation "promise" from NK in exchange for the aid Kim Jong Il needed to prop up his house of horrors. Or how about the intafada? After years of Clinton slow dancing with Arafat and the corrupt Palestinian Authority, open warfare broke out. Fooled again. A more apt comparison to Clinton would have been Jimmy Carter, minus Carter's decency.
Here's the crowning achievment of your hero's eight year foreign policy work.
Clinton used the U.S. military to kill people on the day his impeachment hearing was starting. He ordered the attacks knowing that Americans generally rally around their president in times of military conflict. This was not warfare, it was murder. Bill Mahar was right, it was an act of cowardice, not by the military as he suggested, but by Clinton, the commander in chief. Clinton neededed some positive publicity from the press and to take Americans minds off his impending impeachment hearing which was brought on brought on by his lying to Congress about a personal indescretion committed with a junior staff member. It worked too. A Republican president would be raosted alive in perpetuity (a la Nixon) and rightfully so. Clinton is a murdering, lying, cloven-hoofed, low life who sullied America's military to help him out of a personal jam. Sexual assault, infidelity, taking campaign contributions from foreign powers... those are just SOME of the things we know about your man. If honesty ever comes back in vogue the history books will record Bill Clinton as the twentieth century Caligula. His foreign policy has failed because he is a failure as a person.
EuroWeenies are propping him up, as usual. That's not our failure.
As with Libya, those of us who are holding sanctions over Cuba will be the ones with negotiating power when change arrives. Castro dies, and his appointed successor (the chairman of the Cuban Communist party) wants to change the terms of the relationship. Who does he talk to? The Eurotwits who are using tourist and trade dollars to prop up the regime, or the nasty Americans who are holding the line?
Clearly we're waiting for Castro to die -- the issue is whether or not our policy will drive change when he dies. If we fold, we get nothing.
Ursus-
OK, so "Euroweenies" are the reason why Castro remains in power. If that is the case, then what exactly is the point in maintaining an ineffective embargo? Sure, you can say that it would work if only other countries would cooperate. Well, many government programs would work great if only other factors in the real world didn't intervene. So, what exactly is the compelling reason for maintaining an embargo against Cuba?
My prediction: At some point Castro will die. (That's right, I'm really going out on a limb here... 🙂 On that happy day there will probably be an internal struggle that results in, well, something better than the status quo. I don't know enough to prognosticate the details.
But, whoever the US President happens to be, he will undoubtedly declare victory for himself and all predecessors from his party. The other political party in the US will insist that the victory belongs to all of the preceding Presidents from their party. Everybody will overlook the fact that nothing changed until Castro did the world a favor and died, because that would make it more difficult to give credit to US Presidents. Sort of like unemployment: High unemployment is always a previous administration's policies finally bearing their bitter fruit, and low unemployment is always proof positive that the current administration is a council of sages.
Ursus,
Bush may not have used the exact phrase "imminent threat" but his inflammatory speeches about Iraq could easily be interpreted that way (although his press secretary and Rumsfeld both refered to the threat Iraq posed as imminent). Most Americans, with the help of the major media, bought the lie.
Why did he not begin backpeddleing until after the war, when it was plain to see that Iraq was not an imminent threat?
How many times since the war ended and the occupation began has Bush mentioned those pesky WMD's, compared the number of times we've heard "freeing the Iraqi people" or "ridding the world of a murderous dictator?" Both are positives but hardly a reason for war (unless we plan on invading 1/4 of the planet to rid the world of dictators).
Bush exagerrated (or in my opinion, straight-up lied) to make the case for war. If Al Gore were in office, (most) republicans would probably be going apeshit over this.
Heh. Were the '98 Iraqi Liberation Act and other authorizations time-travel to advance GW's sinister plot to manipulate public opinion?
Look, ridding the world of a genocidal tyrant who had started wars with two neighbors and threatened others, who had used WMDs in war and in police action, who had actively supported terrorists and their attacks on American citizens and interests, and who was in active continuous violation of a governing cease-fire agreement... for Clinton 'regime change' was a good idea, for Bush it was mandatory in the perspective of 9/11 and our demonstrated weakness as an open society. Bush also used those arguments in his speeches on the subject -- he dropped more words on humanitarian issues than on the WMD concerns -- but the opposition is apparently unable to read his speeches. Apart from that, he also had authorization from a congress who had seen the same intelligence data and reached the same conclusion, and +70% popular support. Your attempts to twist those facts to fit your world view are entirely irrelevant.
So what if they haven't yet found pre-existing weaponized kit -- they have found base materials and production capabilities, which proved the point if not the detail. Honestly, the opposition is trying to set the bar so high that only the only vindication would be discovery of unsuspected chem/bio ICBMs pointed at NYC.
Bush foreign policy summary
"Look, it?s really, really, really sad that a murderer who murdered thousands isn?t around to murder people any more, and I feel deeply sorry for everyone who wishes Saddam Hussein was still in power so the murdering could continue, but all the wishing in the world won?t put him back in charge, you know? The Saddam era is, alas, over. Besides, even without Saddam in power, the world isn?t such a bad place. Castro is still killing people. So is Mugabe. So is Kim Jong-il. See? I bet you?re feeling better already."
Tim Blair
Iraq didn't make Libya more likely to cooperate w/ the US, it made them _less_ likely. If someone in Libyan intelligence has a dialup connection, he could google and find Rove's "No Wars in '04" policy (i.e. another war would have too high a risk of hurting Bush politically). He could find how stretched we are when occupying Afghanistan and Iraq and know we don't have the manpower to occupy Libya after invading. Could we get the British to go along with us again after the whole WMD fiasco?
Do you find someting amusing about the name Biggus...Dickus? Hm?
"What a shame Clinton's foreign policy genius had to wait until 3 years after he left office to manifest itself." What a stupid thing to write. It must to painful to have a mind that can only move in one direction. How any could read any of the above comments as "Thank Clinton for Libya's concessions" is beyond me.
The fact is, the interactions with Cuba have been a long, steady process that was carried though from Reagan through Bush through Clinton through W. Not everything is partisan politics, and not everything happens according to our 4 year presidential election cycle.
"If Al Gore were in office, (most) republicans would probably be going apeshit over this."
You're right, if Al Gore had been the lucky one and was chosen to be "president select": the Taleban would still be running Afghanistan, Al Qaeda would be on a membership drive, Saddam would still be smiling and killing his enemies, the UN would be directing foreign policy and Republicans would definitely be going apeshit. (But the New York Times would praise Gore for his sense of multilateralism and desire to address the 'root causes of terrorism')
Hey, didn't this start out as a post about the possibility of W's big-stick foreign policy forcing Q'daffy into seeing the light?
Wow, almost an entire thread without being accused of being a Saddam sympathizer. I'm now waiting for the "Bushitler lied" post followed by a link to antiwar.com....that's my favorite.
So +70% of Americas were for the war...big deal. Sorry, but I have little faith in the public on domestic issues, not to mention foreign affairs. I doubt half of the American public could locate Iraq on a map.
Matt,
Bush never painted Iraq as an 'imminent' threat, he called them a 'gathering' threat, and that position has been proven out (retained production capabilies, missile programs, UAVs w/ chem sprays, etc).
Furthermore, Bush had a congressional authorization and +70% support from the populace. That and 14 months of build-up is a lot of effort for a 'wag the dog' reaction, don't you think?
I also think that this is proof of why our policy with Cuba continues to be correct.
Whatever the merits or demerits of our policies elsewhere, Castro has been in power for 40+ years, and we've imposed sanctions for 40+ years. He's outlasted Soviet leaders. Clearly our policy in Cuba is a failure.
Mind you, I'm not one of those fringe lefties who thinks Cuba is an example of good governence. I just think that failure is, um, failure. If we can trade with China, surely we can trade with Cuba.
> but I have little faith in the public on domestic issues, not to mention foreign affairs.
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