SECRETARY OF STATE Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Libya last week represents the final step in a decades-long U.S. effort to reform and rehabilitate the rogue state. A charter member of the U.S. Department of State’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, after its nuclear program was disclosed in 2003, Tripoli demonstrated contrition and agreed to compensate American victims of a 1988 terrorist attack. Libya was scratched from the list in 2006, and this past August Washington struck a deal with Tripoli that removed the final hurdles in normalizing the bilateral relationship.
The Bush administration considers the reintegration of Libya to be among its crowning foreign policy achievements and a roadmap for other rogue states. Indeed, in 2006 Secretary Rice described Libya as “an important model as nations around the world press for changes in behavior by the Iranian and North Korean regimes.” Despite the self-congratulations, however, the agreement is not the unqualified success it is portrayed to be. The rollback of Libya’s nuclear program was a strategic achievement, but it was not without a political and moral cost.
