Following on from Perry’s post immediately below this one, I see that Guido Fawkes (aka Paul Staines), has, by his standards, a pretty long, and more significantly, very strongly worded item pointing to all the various links between the late, unlamented Labour government, and the equally unlamented Libyan dictator. I wonder how Tony Blair regrets that photo of him shaking hands with Gaddaffi?
Maybe not. Maybe, Blair might argue, that yes, the guy was and is a bastard, but he came clean about his own WMD programmes in 2003 after Saddam was toppled and to that limited extent, it was right for the West to “reward” those countries run by people who had shown some signs of seeing sense. But the trouble with this sort of realpolitik is that it requires a country like Britain to turn a sort of Nelsonian blind eye to the manifest wickedness of a regime and its past. And let’s not be partisan here: the same calculations have been taken by rightwing administrations as well. Such statecraft is an ugly business, and not a place for high-falutin sanctimony. That said, the deal to release the guy blamed for the Lockerbie massacre, only to see how this release was treated by the Libyan authorities, stank to high heaven. It also unnecessarily has damaged relations between the UK and US.
As for what happens next, I haven’t the foggiest idea.
Of course the links between the British left and Libya go a great deal further back! Ask the NUM and Arthur Scargill!
More importantly, I seem to remember that GdaffyDuck was sending weapons left, right and centre to support such middle eastern groups such as …err… the IRA, Red Army Faction (aka the “other” RAF), Carlos the Jackal, etc.
How much RealPolitik do you need? The man was a terrorist supporting fruitcake right up their with Saddam Hussain except that this nutter actually DID have WMD’s.
I agree that there is a case where you have to settle old differences to move on in international politics, but the dividing line here (and even back in 2003, Tony Bliar knew it) was to say “Resign first, then we’ll talk”.
Ultimately, it looks like GdaffyDuck will be given either the Amin or Marcos exit – namely exile for life with your kids leaving all the assets and bank accounts behind.
Libya isn’t in a great place at the moment, but it will be better than it was under GdaffyDuck.
I guess in “statecraft” one has to deal in the present.
Gadaffi was not much of a threat now. As you mention, he had opened up the WMD programme to the West. (How he probably regrets that now, and is that a lesson to all other current and would-be totalitarianists?)
It is possible that the Lockerbie bomber actually came from somewhere else. Iran seems a good candidate.
And anything coming after him will no doubt be in the severe Islamist mode. As is probably happening in Egypt now that we have heroically got rid of that Mubbarrak.
I am always suspicion of the media. Anyone who gets a sustained bad press probably has to be doing something right.
It is somewhat surprising that the media has managed to turn its attention on Syria. If Assad goes then it will be more difficult for Iran. Iran is anti West and anything anti west is surely good, for the media.
But the violence being used against Syrians is far worse than anything that happened in Egypt or Libya, so I suppose eventually some of it had to register in MSM.
A very hostile Middle East seems likely. Israel will be in severe trouble just now. The future looks very bleak. I wish it did not.
But, I would add, this is not unexpected in Biblical prophecy.
As you mention, he had opened up the WMD programme to the West. (How he probably regrets that now, and is that a lesson to all other current and would-be totalitarianists?)
If I were running a country like Iran or North Korea that would be my take-away lesson: Never give up the nukes.
It feels like the only notable thing that the Scottish government has ever achieved. Freeing a convicted mass murderer for deeply grubby political reasons, and concocting a cock and bull story about him being ill.
Must make them so proud. And they’ve got their own banknotes too, you know. Legal tender.
Ralph Miliband lecture at LSE – G.s son gave the lecture and the regime donates millions.
It is not just American leftists who have been up to their necks with the socialist Libyan regime – Ed Miliband (and co) is deeply involved and has been for years.
No real attack from the Conservative party leadership and, of course, nothing from the BBC.
By the way anyone else notice that the BBC does not say that the regime in Libya was socialist, indeed fanatically so.
QotD.
REAL Realpolitik might have been ushered in with an assassination or two. But of course, one of the bedrock principles of Western diplomacy is that people have a right to be murdered by their own governments, or at least that the governments have a right to do the murdering.
Apparently the smitebot has fallen asleep on the job.