Partially in response to Washington’s war that ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003, ostensibly because of a threat posed by Baghdad’s “weapons of mass destruction,” Libyan leader Muammar el-Qaddafi seemed to capitulate regarding such matters.
He reconfirmed his country's adherence to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in December of that year and agreed to abandon his country’s embryonic nuclear program.
In exchange, the United States and its allies lifted economic sanctions and pledged that they no longer sought to isolate Libya. Qaddafi was welcomed back into the international community once he relinquished his nuclear ambitions.
That reconciliation lasted less than a decade.
When one of the periodic domestic revolts against Qaddafi’s rule erupted again in 2011, Washington and its NATO partners argued that a humanitarian catastrophe was imminent (despite meager evidence of that scenario), and initiated a military intervention.
It soon became apparent that the official justification to protect innocent civilians was a cynical pretext, and that another regime-change war was underway.
The Western powers launched devastating air strikes and cruise-missile attacks against Libyan government forces. NATO also armed rebel units and assisted the insurgency in other ways.
Although all previous revolts had fizzled, extensive Western military involvement produced a very different result this time.
The insurgents not only overthrew Qaddafi, they captured, tortured and executed him in an especially grisly fashion. Washington’s response was astonishingly flippant. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quipped: “We came, we saw, he died.”
He reconfirmed his country's adherence to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in December of that year and agreed to abandon his country’s embryonic nuclear program.
In exchange, the United States and its allies lifted economic sanctions and pledged that they no longer sought to isolate Libya. Qaddafi was welcomed back into the international community once he relinquished his nuclear ambitions.
That reconciliation lasted less than a decade.
When one of the periodic domestic revolts against Qaddafi’s rule erupted again in 2011, Washington and its NATO partners argued that a humanitarian catastrophe was imminent (despite meager evidence of that scenario), and initiated a military intervention.
It soon became apparent that the official justification to protect innocent civilians was a cynical pretext, and that another regime-change war was underway.
The Western powers launched devastating air strikes and cruise-missile attacks against Libyan government forces. NATO also armed rebel units and assisted the insurgency in other ways.
Although all previous revolts had fizzled, extensive Western military involvement produced a very different result this time.
The insurgents not only overthrew Qaddafi, they captured, tortured and executed him in an especially grisly fashion. Washington’s response was astonishingly flippant. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quipped: “We came, we saw, he died.”
