Stardate 20031220.1557

(On Screen): In the wake of the capture of Saddam Hussein and a very broad roundup of other insurgents, those who have been hoping for American failure have now been blindsided with another hammer blow: Qaddafi announced that Libya would abandon all its secret programs to develop WMDs and would cooperate with international verification efforts.

What makes this even worse is that this is a purely diplomatic achievement, not a military one.

The usual suspects could not actually condemn this triumph, so they tried to take credit for it. The Wapo's "analysis" was subtitled "Two Decades of Sanctions, Isolation Wore Down Gaddafi". And it tries to explain this as being the cumulative result of decades of peaceful effort:

"What forced Gaddafi to act was a combination of things -- U.N. sanctions after the Lockerbie bombing, his international isolation after the Soviet Union's collapse . . . and internal economic problems that led to domestic unrest by Islamists and forces within the military," said Ray Takeyh, a Libya expert at the National Defense University.

Whether by coincidence or fear that Libya might be targeted, Gaddafi's envoys approached Britain on the eve of the Iraq war to discuss a deal, U.S. officials said.

They're not bold enough to try to claim that it was truly a coincidence, but they use a rhetorical trick to at least present it as a possibility, so as to hold out at least the possibility that Bush shouldn't be given credit for this.

The AP reports other reactions from around the world:

China, locked in its own effort to halt neighbor North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and other nations saw Libya's surprise pledge as evidence that negotiations work.

... U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, through a spokesman, hailed Libya's decision as "a positive step toward the strengthening of global efforts to prevent the spread and use of those weapons."

He urged all nations to fully implement disarmament treaties.

... Russia and France, both vociferous opponents of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, said Libya's decision demonstrated the effectiveness of using peaceful political tools to resolve international problems.

"It clearly proves that diplomacy can win over proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons," added Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy representative.

The idea that this was somehow a triumph of diplomacy and soft power pressure (e.g. sanctions), as is variously claimed by China, Russia, France, and Solana at the EU doesn't stand up to the light of day. Why was it the British (and indirectly the Americans) that Libya contacted, not China or Russia or France or the EU or the UN? Why did Qaddafi begin his diplomacy last March, and not earlier or later? And why the final agreement now, rather than last August or next August?

They really have no choice but to try to spin it this way, but it doesn't convince any who are willing to look at it with an open mind. And you can detect just a hint of a feeling that somehow this is cheating. They were the ones advocating diplomacy while we seemed to be violent brutes looking for someone to crush; it hardly seems fair that we were the ones to pull off such a major diplomatic achievement and not them.

Based on reports, it looks as if Qaddafi first made contact with the British just after the Americans and British abandoned attempts to deal with the UN and made the decision to attack Iraq without formal UNSC authorization. In other words, Qaddafi called London once it became clear that the UN was not capable of preventing America from going to war. That's when negotiations began.

Was it coincidence that the negotiations were concluded only days after Saddam was captured? Probably not. Likely there were a few final sticking points, and when Saddam was found, and was so totally disgraced by his condition, circumstances and lack of resistance, Qaddafi felt a chill wind blowing down his spine and gave in.

Why did this happen? What was different? It isn't too difficult to figure it out.

What was different was that someone had finally gone beyond diplomacy and soft power and was poised to crush a dictator who had been doing the same kinds of things that Qaddafi had been doing. Qaddafi didn't want to be the next crushee.

It was not "We're all reasonable men here" diplomacy (a la Solana) which ultimately did it; it was a clear and naked threat. Qaddafi was afraid of American military power and afraid of President Bush's determination.

Why did he call the British, rather than the French or the Russians or the EU or the UN? That's another interesting piece to the puzzle. What has developed over the last couple years is that Blair and Bush are doing a superb good-cop/bad-cop act. Blair is the good cop, the "reasonable" one. Unlike Australian PM John Howard, Blair has leftist/internationalist credentials, and has positioned himself to be the only world leader with such credentials who has significant influence with Bush and who has some ability to