December 30, 2003, 12:00 a.m.
Power Wins
How President Bush came to celebrate a merry Christmas.

If President Bush does not fall on his knees and thank Santa Claus for his Christmas gifts this year, then he deserves to be sent to bed with only dry bread. First the capture of Saddam Hussein led the news cycle. Then the capitulation of Muammar Khaddafi dominated the headlines. And both events were unquestionably triumphs for the president.

As such they posed considerable difficulties of interpretation for Mr. Bush's rivals and critics such as the Democrats or the "Europeans." It was just about possible for them to maintain through forced smiles and clenched teeth that Saddam's capture was welcome but politically irrelevant since others were now leading the "resistance" in Iraq.

But the capitulation of Khaddafi is incontestably relevant to the politics of the Iraqi war. For it justifies one of the main arguments for the Iraq war — namely, the so-called "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive intervention against rogue states seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMDs.)

Much scorn has been poured on the Bush doctrine on the grounds that the inspectors have thus far found no WMDs in Iraq. What they have found, of course, is evidence that the regime was creating the scientific and technical capacity to manufacture WMDs. And that is quite enough justification for intervention. After all, even if reasonable men can differ over the level and immediacy of the threat Iraq posed a year ago to its neighbors, the Middle East or to the U.S., Iraq poses no WMD threat whatsoever today. Indeed, Saddam will shortly be hanged to discourage imitators. And despite his alleged "irrelevance," his fate is likely to destroy the hope of a Baathist restoration that has been driving the non-foreign "resistance" forces. Q.E.D.

That brings us to the capitulation of Khaddafi. If Saddam and Iraq can be cited to show the direct impact of the Bush doctrine, Khaddafi and Libya demonstrate its indirect effects. Libya's dictator agreed to end extensive WMD programs and to permit "intrusive" inspections by the International Economic Energy Authority to verify their dismantling. Why?

Was Khaddafi afraid that he might be the next victim of an American attack? Or was there some other causal factor?

Ever since the Dec. 19 announcement, various "Europeans" and Democrats have been scrambling to explain that the Libyan reversal was the result
of "diplomacy." Thus Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission (i.e. a senior civil servant), remarked that Khaddafi's decision "demonstrates the effectiveness of discreet diplomacy and engagement which has been the European Commission's consistent approach." Senator John Kerry, one of the Democratic presidential hopefuls, went even further and suggested that the Khaddafi announcement represented a u-turn by President Bush who was abandoning a policy rooted in the unilateral use of force and adopting one based on multilateral negotiations.

But three aspects of the Khaddafi affair undercut these benign and pacifistic interpretations:

First, the timing. Khaddafi approached the British to open talks on ending his WMD programs one week before the invasion of Iraq when it was plain that Saddam was about to fall over WMDs. He hurried along the announcement after Saddam was actually captured. At the very least it looks as if he was afraid of suffering the same fate.

Second, there actually was military intervention against Libya — and Khaddafi remained silent about it. A U.S.-led Coalition halted Libyan ships containing WMD contraband on the high seas under the president's Proliferation Security Initiative. That told the Libyan dictator that the U.S. knew a great deal about his WMD programs and was prepared to halt them by military means if necessary. He drew the appropriate conclusion — he might as well negotiate in the hope of getting some benefits rather than waiting to be picked up and shaved by the U.S. Army.

Third, Khaddafi obligingly told Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi that after the invasion of Iraq he was afraid of the U.S. Berlusconi was quoted on this in the London Spectator in April of 2003, long before any but a few Anglo-American diplomats knew that the Libyan dictator was suing for peace.

None of which is to say that diplomacy played no part in Libya's surrender. British and American negotiators have been engaged in talks with Libya since the spring. But these negotiations were essentially about the terms of Khaddafi's capitulation.

What persuaded the Libyan rogue dictator to surrender in the first place was fear of the consequences (a.k.a. the Bush doctrine.)

The main lesson of the Khaddafi capitulation is one that I've repeatedly maintained over the years — namely, Frederick the Great's dictum that "Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments." Or to translate the simile into simple terms, the credible threat of force is the only means of persuading men like Khaddafi to negotiate in good faith (and to keep their agreements once made.)

Neither Romano Prodi nor John Kerry like this lesson. They wish it were not true. They have constructed an entire theory of international politics on the hope that negotiations, multilateralism, and international bodies can solve all problems. And when evidence emerges that great powers and force still play a necessary role in world affairs, they seek instinctively to explain it away and to substitute their own panacea for it.

After Khaddafi, however, it is clear that negotiations from a position of power are a much sounder foundation for international peace than the power of negotiations. Politicians who refuse to acknowledge this are a danger to the security of the West and thus, in the long run, to international peace as well.

John O'Sullivan is editor of The National Interest and National Review editor-at-large. He can be contacted via www.benadorassociates.com.

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