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LIBYA: WILL THE U.S. TAKE 'YES' FOR AN ANSWER?
Qadaffi's turnaround poses a challenge to U.S. policymakers

The decision by Libya's Moammar Qadaffi to come clean, so to speak, and give up his weapons of mass destruction is being touted, by the War Party, as proof that their program of "regime change" in Iraq has put the fear of God – or, at least, of Washington and London – in the region's bad boys. But to anyone who has been paying the least bit of attention to Libya and its eccentric leader for the past decade or so, this contention is utter nonsense.

Libyan efforts to break out of economic and diplomatic isolation long preceded the invasion of Iraq: the surrender and trial of the two suspects in the 1988 Pan Am Lockerbie bombing, in 1999, made it plain to even the least attentive that the world-renowned oddball, who once fancied himself the Che Guevara of the Arab world, was going "straight."

The process leading to the dropping of United Nations sanctions and the rapid reintegration of Libya into the Mediterranean matrix of commerce, culture, and diplomacy began well before the Iraq war was a twinkle in Paul Wolfowtiz's eye. ...