Rehabilitating a Rogue:
Libya’s WMD Reversal and
Lessons for US Policy
DAFNA HOCHMAN
© 2006 Dafna Hochman
From Parameters, Spring 2006, pp. 63-78.
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According to former US Senator Gary Hart, the head of the Libyan intelligence services approached him in 1992 and offered to turn over the two Pam Am bombing suspects, later identified as Abdel Basset Ali Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah. In exchange, Libya wanted a commitment from the George H. W. Bush Administration that preliminary discussions would begin regarding the lifting of sanctions and eventual normalization of US-Libyan relations. According to Hart’s account, the State Department rejected any possibility of dialogue, insisting that no negotiations would occur until Libya showed proof of complying with the UN resolutions.34 In other words, the UN demands were not part of the negotiations themselves, but rather a prerequisite Libya had to fulfill to earn a place at the negotiating table.
President Clinton’s 1998 statement of his Administration’s policy toward Libya underscored that the resolution of the Pan Am 103 issues remained the top priority in US-Libyan relations.35 A year later, Libyan officials held secret discussions with Clinton Administration officials to convey Qadhafi’s interest in normalizing relations. The Clinton White House again stated that no movement toward better relations was possible until Libya met its responsibilities stemming from the Pan Am 103 tragedy.36 According to then-Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Martin Indyk,37 although the Libyans offered to negotiate eliminating their WMD programs in 1999, at that time the Administration was much more interested in securing compensation for the Pan Am 103 families. Indyk recounts:
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Each of these causal factors influencing Qadhafi’s decisionmaking has been loosely incorporated into a US foreign policy approach applied toward Libya over the past 15 years. In the short term, two specific, more immediate “triggers” probably contributed to the timing of Qadhafi’s announcement. First, in early October 2003, the United States allegedly intercepted an illegal shipment of thousands of parts of uranium-enrichment equipment bound for Libya. While Libyan officials already had approached Bush Administration officials six months earlier about Qadhafi’s intent to disarm, the seizure in early October likely sealed his decision to dismantle his nuclear weapons program. Being caught red-handed seemed to have expedited Qadhafi’s willingness to disarm and might have hastened the 19 December 2003 announcement.39 Second, Qadhafi’s concern about his succession probably influenced the timing of his decision. By all accounts, Qadhafi is grooming his son, Saif al-Islam, to replace him. Saif al-Islam might have urged his father to issue the disarmament decision as soon as possible, as Saif al-Islam himself has been a strong proponent of dialogue with the United States and the West.
While the above triggers are notable, they expedited an already ongoing process. The gradual rehabilitation of Qadhafi resulted from varied, long-term US foreign policy approaches. Ultimately, there is no clear formula prescribing the rehabilitation of rogues or a clear roadmap to generate voluntary disarmament. The Libyan reversal suggests that US policymakers should be mindful to appeal to a diverse array of possible approaches as a necessary, though not sufficient, first step.
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