Libya’s decision to give up its nuclear program has been cited by the right-wing warhawks as proof of how brilliant Bush’s military strategy has been: We scared one of our longtime opponents into coming to the negotiating table with his tail tucked between his legs! Force works!

Reading “Nuclear Jihadist” recently (a book about Pakistani nuclear mastermind A.Q. Khan) I was fascinated to learn how off this argument is: The White House did bring Khadaffi to the table, but only by a great deal of diplomacy, bargaining and persuasion, carefully structuring the deal so that Khadaffi didn’t lose face by publicly caving to our demands.

And that’s to the credit of the Bush administration, I should add: It’s a degree of diplomatic skill I wouldn’t have credited them with, and I’m glad I was wrong.

Libya’s compliance is not, however, proof that going over and “throwing some country against a wall” (a phrase attributed to hawk Michael Ledeen) will bring the Middle East round.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 1:23 pm and is filed under War/military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.