Gaddafi's courtship with the west

With his peculiar revolutionary impulse his clash with the west was at one time or other inevitable. Moreover, the policy he pursued led him to back all movements hostile to the west. He also rejected monarchical regimes that splashed the Arab world and most of which found it expedient to collaborate with the west. His identification with anti-statusquo forces brought him into continuous confrontation with an entrenched establishment. Nevertheless, he tried to profit from the brief period of political advantage that was temporarily enjoyed by the Arab world following the oil price increase of the 1970s. Though Egypt won back some military initiative in the conflict of 1973 with Israel, eventually the power realities on the ground reasserted themselves.

Reckless as he was Gaddafi seldom drew lesson from any of the predicaments faced by him and his militant support to the liberation movements, particularly his backing to the Palestinian cause brought him into conflict with the US that considered his policies dangerous and provocative. Following his involvement in Palestinian attacks on the American ships President Reagan, it may be recalled, ordered air strikes against him in 1984 in which his daughter was killed. The involvement of Libya with the downing of a PanAmerican flight in December 1988 over Scotland led to the sanctions being imposed on Libya that seriously affected the country's economy. This proved to be a turning point in his adventure and considerably dampened his revolutionary zeal.

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The US' victory in the cold war in 1989, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Gulf War 1991 placed the US in position of such dominance that Gaddafi began to see the need for more pragmatic approach in his policy and for the first time turned to the real politik. He shunned his flamboyancy a great deal, put his feet on the earth and said goodbye to the revolution. He began his new approach by agreeing to hand over the two Libyans accused in the PanAm crash for trial by an international tribunal. Without formally accepting responsibility he also agreed to pay compensation amounting to $ 2.7 bn to the families of the 270 persons killed in the crash. This led the United Nations to lift the sanctions on Libya.

But that wasn't all. The US did not lift the sanctions -- which matters most because it categorised Libya as a 'terrorist' state that, it is alleged, was supporting and financing international terrorism. The US now also insisted upon WMD declaration from Libya.

On the other hand Libya had been adamant that the full $ 10 million per victim would not be paid unless American sanctions were lifted.

The trouble is, Libya's WMD had never before occasioned much comment -- not even from Israel. That's because it did not really posses anything of note. There may be some unusable chemical weapons among the stockpiles of the rusting Soviet-era military equipment but nothing much in the biological or nuclear sphere apart, of course from aspirations. The International Atomic Energy's Muhammed El Baradei arrived in Tripoli in the weekend and it will be interesting to see what his inspection yields.

WMD or no WMD, according to official Libyan statement Gaddafi was reluctant to make the statement of his renunciation of WMD, but was prevailed upon to do so by Tony Blair and George W. Bush. Following the capture of Saddam Hussein they were keen on another feather on their cap before the Christmas. Osama bin Laden remained out of reach, so the colonel would have to do the trick on his new friends' insistence.

The final stage of negotiation reportedly included a 30-minute telephone conversation between Gaddafi and Blair who later described the Libyan leader as "courageous." Jack Straw chipped in with comment "statesman like." So at least one Arab country garners plaudits for giving up weapon it never possessed.

Brig ( retd) Hafiz is former DG of BIISS.