What Next With Libya?

Reporter Charles Wolfson is a former Tel Aviv bureau chief for CBS News who now covers the State Department.

State department spokesmen said "the U.S. does not compensate nations for eliminating their nuclear weapons programs and Libya understands that." However, they are quick to add that such a move "does open the door to the possibility of better relations between the two countries." Col. Moammar Gadhafi's government clearly expects a favorable reaction from Washington and it may not have long to wait before the Bush administration offers a positive response.

"Libya's actions do give cause for satisfaction, but it's too early to put Libya in the 'win' column," writes analyst Jon Alterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

For decades Gadhafi's regime defied virtually every plea, request or overture made by successive administrations in Washington to moderate its behavior regarding its support for terrorists and its intention to develop programs to produce weapons of mass destruction. During the closing years of the Clinton administration, the first signs of Libya's willingness to be less obstructionist became apparent regarding the investigation of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103.

Flynt Leverett, a Middle East analyst at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center and a former national security council aide, wrote in a Jan. 23rd New York Times piece, that Libya sought normalized relations with the U.S. in the late 1990s and used Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, to mediate. Eventually, Libya turned over two suspects to stand trial for the Pan Am 103 bombing, a judicial and compensation outcome was reached and responsibility was accepted by Libya. These actions led to a lifting of United Nations sanctions.

Still under additional American sanctions, however, Libya then moved even further, soon indicating a willingness to abandon its WMD programs. In his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush, clearly expecting Gadhafi's nuclear program to end, drew a distinction between Libya's regime and Saddam Hussein's Iraq: "Nine months of intense negotiations involving the United States and Great Britain succeeded with Libya, while 12 years of diplomacy with Iraq did not."

Alterman of CSIS says getting off Washington's list of bad-boy regimes will help Libya's struggling economy and enable it to sell oil and gas to Europe. It could very well also open the door to American oil companies expanding their business ties, after being frozen out of that market because of sanctions. However, this last point might prove a double-edged sword. "Compromise with Libya now opens the administration up to partisan charges that it is fully captive to the oil industry, bartering U.S. interests for barrels of oil," writes Alterman.

Gadhafi, who's been in power since 1969, can be seen as exhibiting his sometime flamboyant personality as well. Alterman notes the Libyan leader is "not afraid to be dramatic" unlike a number of his counterparts in the Arab world, men such as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Syria's Bashar al-Assad.

Given the speed with which Libya has moved to rid itself of its nuclear weapons material, the Bush administration can be expected to keep its side of the understanding. Perhaps Washington will open an office in Tripoli - it would not be called an embassy - or take other steps, such as making it easier for Americans to travel to Libya to show Gadhafi this new arrangement will be a two-way street.

As officials here consider their response to Libya's actions, they continue to monitor any impact of these moves on the regimes in Iran and Syria, two countries in the region which the Bush administration would also like to see reverse course. Meanwhile, Alterman of CSIS, cautions that "what we have seen so far (with Libya) is not victory; it is more properly seen as opportunity."

By Charles Wolfson