The United States and Libya: From Confrontation to Normalization (original) (raw)

Libyan Foreign Policy: Newfound Flexibility

Orbis, 2003

M uammar al-Qaddafi initiated significant modifications in the tone, content, and direction of Libyan foreign policy as the twentieth century closed, a process he accelerated in the wake of the 9/11/01 attacks on America. Qaddafi's ability and desire to institutionalize his agenda are not yet clear, but many aspects of contemporary Libyan foreign policy will be difficult to reverse. The new directions in Libya's external policy have important implications for the Bush administration's war on terror, most especially its preemptive strategy against hostile states and terrorist groups. 1 One of the more unfortunate results of the embargo regime imposed on Libya by the United States beginning with the Reagan administration was that it throttled the flow of information between the two states. Consequently, U.S. policy makers today operate largely from a state of ignorance about Libya, its leaders, and its policies. With Libya a potential second-tier preemptive strike target in the war on terror, it becomes doubly important to understand clearly the developments taking place in the external policies of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. Sanctions Regimes Bilateral relations between Libya and the United States were not good at any time after Qaddafi came to power in a 1969 coup d'état, and they deteriorated after 1979, when, in the early days of the Iranian hostage crisis, Libyan students trashed the U.S. embassy in Tripoli. In the early '80s, considering Qaddafi an international pariah as well as a Soviet puppet, the Reagan administration systematically increased diplomatic, economic, and military pressure on the Libyan government. It closed the Libyan People's Bureau in Washington, advised U.S. oil companies to begin reducing

Libya and the U.S.: Qadhafi Unrepentant

Middle East Quarterly, 2006

... to the Libyan people Now they are putting their illicit gains at the disposal of the opposition led by Sadat, world imperialism ... He also imprisoned dissident Abdul Razzaq al-Mansouri.[38] Washington's continued silence in the face of Qadhafi's crackdown may have emboldened ...

" MUAMMAR GADDAFI, HERO OR VILLAIN " ?; ISSUES IN AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The view about Muammar Gaddafi has been a divergent issue, with some people seeing him as a Hero while others see him as a Vallain. Muammar Gaddafi was the Libyan Head of State. He came to power in September 1969 through a Military coup that ousted the capitalist and pro-western monarchical government of King Idris. This change in government enabled Libya to articulate revolutionary domestic and foreign policies that had severe impact on American interests in particular and the ‘WEST’ in general. Consequently, this study adopted a historic-structural, analytical and systematic approach. Findings of this paper examined the American foreign policy posture as it affects the Middle East and critically analyzed if Gaddafi was as he had been painted

The United States and Libya: The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy

The protests that have broken out across North Africa in 2011 over, among other issues, demands for increased democracy draw our attention to the manner in which the United States has sought to promote democracy across the region during previous decades. The case of Libya is particularly insightful. The rehabilitation of Qadhafi's regime, one of the harshest dictatorships in the region, surprised those who had hoped that the United States was serious about making democracy and good governance one of its foreign policy objectives. In focusing on events since 1999, this article argues that the United States conditioned normalisation on Libya's cooperation in the fight against terrorism and the abandonment of its nuclear programme. Notably, it succeeded in affecting Libya's behaviour. However, other issues such as human rights and good governance have not been part of the package. The rehabilitation of Qadhafi's regime without fundamental change to its structures has not enticed the regime to democratise and has contributed to the consolidation of its authoritarian nature. The Libyan case demonstrates that coercive diplomacy has succeeded in affecting Libya's policy decisions in important ways, yet the US has not significantly affected the nature of Qadhafi's dictatorial rule.

Libya and Europe: Economic Realism at the Rescue of the Qaddafi Authoritarian Regime

Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 2009

Relations between Libya and the West in general, and with the members of the European Union, in particular, have always been ambivalent and tense. Libya's foreign policy, founded on radical Arab nationalism, its support for revolutionary and terrorist movements across the globe, as well as its relentless opposition to 'United States imperialism', resulted in costly enmities. Qaddafi's erratic and atypical behaviour caused suspicions regarding the intentions of the country often accused of being a sponsor of state terrorism. Worse still, the Lockerbie (1988) and the UTA (1989) bombings resulted in severe and quite costly sanctions imposed by the United Nations, the United States and the European countries, most of which had severed diplomatic relations with Libya in the late 1980s. Even if the unilateral sanctions the United States imposed upon Libya brought Europeans and Americans to loggerheads, especially as pertaining to commercial interactions, this did not allow Libya to break its international isolation. However, since 1999, relations between Libya and the Western world have undergone a remarkable turnaround. This article reviews the evolution of Libya's relations with the European countries and analyses the reasons which have allowed the recent enhancement of relations between the Jamahiriya and the northern neighbours. Commercial, energy, and security issues are among the main factors which elucidate these developments.