The other day, I heard from a journalist who made an interesting observation. The Associated Press — probably not alone, among news purveyors — is employing the dateline “LHASA, China.” Not “LHASA, Tibet,” but “LHASA, China.” An example of an article with such a dateline is here.

Now, why are they doing that? Are they accepting the Chinese Communists’ assertion that Tibet is a mere province of China? Maybe. And using this dateline may also be a cost of doing business from Tibet. The journalist who wrote me was reminded of CNN in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq: having to pull punches, in order to stay there.

I, for one, would blanch at writing “LHASA, China” — if not vomit. But it’s a messy business, journalism. Disgusting compromises are made.

‐Before I get to my main subject today, wanted to share with you a funny letter, received from a reader. Stems from a language note I had in last Friday’s column.

Says our reader,

In the British Isles, what we call an eraser, they call a rubber. Well . . .
In 1988 I was working as an undergrad lab assistant at Penn State. The lab had a scientist visiting from Ireland for the semester. One afternoon as I was in the administrative office picking up my paycheck, the Irish researcher ducked into the office and asked, in the quaintest brogue, “Pardon me, but does anyone have a rubber?”
I guessed at his meaning and had a short chuckle, but the Pennsylvania Dutch matrons who ran the office were aghast! Open-mouthed, wide-eyed, speechless. Seeing their stunned faces, and having no clue what he had done wrong, the Irishman quickly said (I swear), “I’ll bring it right back as soon as I’m done with it.”
Needless to say, that brought the house down!

Fantastic.

‐Also fantastic is the current issue of National Review. Have you received your copy yet? The cover article is Mark Steyn on Michelle Obama — a priceless piece, combining wisdom and wit, the author’s special brew. Reading about Mrs. O. will almost make you want to elect Hillary.

My own piece is about an interesting slice of foreign policy — our rapprochement with Libya. This came about after Qaddafi did three important things. Do you recall? He renounced his WMD; he renounced terrorism (both the practice of it and the support of it); and he agreed to cooperate against al Qaeda.

As I said, three important things — although there is a debate about whether Qaddafi is through with terrorism. And whether he is truly cooperating with us against al Qaeda. Is he cooperating with them, against us, too? Some conscientious analysts think so.

About our Libya policy at large, there is a robust debate. And that debate takes place within what you might call the hawkish community — people who agree with one another, most of the time. As far as I can tell, there is no debate at all among liberals. They are for rapprochement. And they are ticked at the Bush administration for not offering strong “security guarantees” to Syria, Iran, and North Korea.

What are security guarantees? “Do X, Y, or Z, and we will not lift a finger against you.” And what if the people under a tyrannical government wish to overthrow that government — all by their lonesome? I don’t quite know what the security-guarantee crowd would say about that.

Below, find some notes about the Libyan situation, scattered, but not uninteresting, I hope.

‐Qaddafi is known as a joke and a flake, and so he is — in part. Let us also remember that he is a monster and mass-murderer. He is responsible for vast amounts of pain both within Libya and beyond.

There was the bombing of that discotheque — La Belle — in West Berlin. It killed three people, including two U.S. servicemen. Over 200 others were injured. There was Lockerbie, of course. In 1988, Libyan agents blew up 270 people in a plane over Scotland. And, the next year, they blew up 171 — this time over Niger.

Qaddafi has a lot of blood on his hands. And what about his support of terror groups (I mean, others’)? He supported them all, in countries near and far: Abu Nidal, the Red Army Faction, the Palestinians, the IRA. Eventually, some of these people came to make a kind of peace. And Qaddafi said something actually poignant.

He said that Libya had “isolated itself for the sake of others.” (U.N. sanctions, etc.) And why should Libyans be “more Palestinian than the Palestinians” or “more Irish than the Irish”?

Interesting, huh? If the Irish don’t want to blow up Christmas shoppers at Harrods anymore, why should we?

‐Qaddafi has been in power for almost 40 years. He calls his country — and “his country” is the right way to describe it — the “Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.” That last word means “state in the control of the masses,” or “people’s authority.” Of course, nothing could be further from the truth: The Libyan regime is an absolute dictatorship.

Qaddafi is called the “Guide of the Revolution” or “Brother Leader.” His Green Book is the bible of the place. Whether Mao’s red book or Qaddafi’s green one is the more despicable, I’m not qualified to say.

Do you know that Libya’s flag is the only one in the world without a design, symbol, or word? It’s just green.

I will tell you some fun facts I learned from Victor Davis Hanson. At one point, Qaddafi mandated that every Libyan raise chickens — even the city-dwellers. He also ordered the burning of all Western musical instruments. (Some people spared theirs.) He offered Libyans 5 grand to marry a black African (something about pan-Africanism). Etc.

Qaddafi is a cross-dressing freak, sure — but also a dangerous, murderous, extremely oppressive cross-dressing freak.

Incidentally, I spoke this week with someone who talked with him, at length, within the last two years. Said the colonel looked young and healthy. (And, yes, still a colonel, after all these years . . .)

‐With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the bite of U.N. sanctions, and a general isolation, Qaddafi wanted to come in from the cold. So he put out feelers. He wanted to join “the family of nations.” He accepted responsibility for Lockerbie — although his son and heir apparent, Saif, has taken that back. Saif has denied Libyan responsibility. In any case, the Libyans are paying out — paying compensation to the victims’ families.

(Readers may remember that, a few years ago, Saif Qaddafi was a guest at the Davos forum. Our session with him — I’m referring to a small group of journalists — was one of the strangest and most memorable I have experienced.)

In March 2003, Qaddafi started some serious talking with the Brits and the Americans about Libya’s WMD programs. Anything special about March 2003? Oh, yes: We were about to go into Iraq. Qaddafi’s mind was concentrated.

You may recall what Qaddafi said to Silvio Berlusconi: Tell the Americans I’ll do anything they want. Just spare me the fate of the Taliban and of Saddam and his family.

Qaddafi’s mind was further concentrated in October 2003. Then, under President Bush’s Proliferation Security Initiative, we seized a Qaddafi-bound ship: the BBC China. (I just love that name.) It was carrying nuclear goodies for the dictator. Qaddafi was a customer of both Mr. Khan and the Norks. By all accounts, our operation was daring and brilliant, as were subsequent moves in and around Libya.

(By the way, Libya’s WMD programs are in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee.)

And then we get to December 2003: That’s when the U.S. dragged Saddam out of his hole. And Qaddafi’s mind was really, really concentrated. Credible reports say he watched the tape of Saddam’s capture for hours — mesmerized. And he threw in the towel. He “turned state’s evidence,” in the words of one U.S. official.

‐As you know, a great many people scream bloody murder at the notion that Saddam’s capture had anything to do with Qaddafi’s about-face. (Qaddafi renounced WMD, etc., mere days after Saddam was in our hands.) Why do they scream bloody murder? Unless I miss the mark, they can’t stand the idea that any good at all can come from Bush’s Iraq “misadventure,” as they call it.

I wish to quote something from U.S. News & World Report:

After Saddam was nabbed, graffiti appeared in Tripoli: “Today, Saddam. Tomorrow, Qadhafi.” After the U.S. Army rolled into Baghdad, one of the Leader’s sons, a soccer player named Saadi, was taunted by fans at a match in Tripoli. “Saadi, don’t think you’re a big guy,” they chanted. “Your destiny will be like Uday’s” — a reference to one of Saddam’s slain sons.

Sure, there were other factors in Qaddafi’s capitulation: He wanted to end that isolation, and, along with it, an economic squeeze. Also, he has an Islamist problem: Al Qaeda and associated groups are against him, thinking him insufficiently Islamic. (What, no cross-dressing allowed by the Koran?) Qaddafi has called these people “heretics.” They have tried to assassinate him, or so Saif Qaddafi has claimed.

As usual in the Arab world, citizens are not offered a choice: a choice other than the longtime dictator or the Islamic radicals. A democratic alternative gets squelched.

And I throw this in, as an aside: Do you realize that Qaddafi is passionately anti-Saudi?

But the overriding point: Saddam’s fate had a powerful effect on Qaddafi — a fact plain enough for anyone wishing to see.

I know someone in the national-security biz who makes an interesting comparison: The Iranians released our Carter-era hostages (after 444 days) the moment Reagan lifted his hand to take the oath of office. (January 20, 1981.) Was that timing accidental? No: The Iranians feared that Reagan would flatten Tehran, or do something else unpleasant.

You might say they needn’t have worried: Later, the Gipper traded arms for hostages. But they couldn’t have known not to tremble then.

Qaddafi, too, made an erroneous assessment: He thought GWB was coming after him. He wasn’t — Qaddafi could have skated. But he didn’t know that.

And, in the end, he did precisely what Saddam refused to do: He opened himself up to inspection; he gave up his WMD and his terror. And let us remember — because it’s always forgotten — that Saddam was given every opportunity to come clean. He was given every opportunity to abide by the U.N. resolutions. He could have saved himself — been on his gilded, blood-soaked throne today. But he refused. Qaddafi decided that discretion was the better part of valor (or something).

I was intrigued by something a Jordanian intellectual wrote. He is Dr. Shakir al Nabulsi, chairman of the American Academic Association (in Jordan):

There is no doubt that the Tripoli dictator has proven that he is the shrewdest of all Arab dictators today . . . With his highly developed sense of smell, Qaddafi smelled . . . even before the American invasion of Iraq, that what is happening in the Arab world is not another joke or a political maneuver . . . Qaddafi grasped that with ‘Baghdad Spring 2003,’ the U.S. had unsheathed its sword before the Arab dictators . . . and that the season of harvesting heads had arrived . . .

‐After he flew straight — if flown entirely straight he has — Qaddafi had a message for his fellow nuclearizing dictators: in Syria, Iran, and North Korea. He said they should heed his example, in order “to protect their nations from catastrophe.” In response, Iran, in particular, poured scorn on Qaddafi — calling him a coward and a failure, basically. Other Muslim radicals were likewise furious. Here’s the editor of Al Quds al Arabi in London (of course):

The Libyan leadership did President Bush and Tony Blair a great service by saving them in their difficult hour [when they could not] find WMDs in Iraq. Here is Libya, which has always denied [having] programs for chemical or nuclear WMDs, telling the world that we, the Arabs, hold first place in the world [in telling] lies and misleading, and that for us, only a big-stick policy is valid . . .”

Just so. (And, incidentally, these quotes are drawn from the Middle East Media Research Institute, here.)

‐After December 2003, in gradual steps, the United States normalized — the U.S. granted diplomatic relations to Qaddafi. We removed sanctions, took him off the terror list, etc. Qaddafi’s foreign minister has been to see Condoleezza Rice; Secretary Rice is expected to visit Libya. Qaddafi did Paris, for the first time in decades: He slept in a Bedouin tent pitched in a courtyard next to the Elysée Palace. He is on the U.N. Security Council, and indeed was its president for a month.

And so on. Qaddafi thinks he has not received enough American and world recognition for his renunciations — for his coming clean. Others of us think he has received plenty.

‐Above, I mentioned a conservative debate. One side says — and I’m compressing severely — “Of course it was worth it.” (Our rapprochement with Libya.) “Qaddafi gave up his WMD. He agreed to help us with terror. Yes, it’s a terrible dictatorship — the Libyan people get it on the chin. But better a terrible dictatorship without nuclear weapons than a terrible dictatorship with nuclear weapons.” (John Bolton puts it just this way.)

“Moreover, we will have an embassy, people on the ground, NGOs, all the rest of it — and this leaves us in a better position to have influence once the current dictator departs.

“In addition to which, our rapprochement with Libya provides an example to other countries: Do what they did, and you’ll get the same treatment.” (Bolton likes to point out that there’s plenty of room in Oak Ridge, next to the Libyan WMD, for the Iranian and the North Korean.)

How about the other side of the conservative debate? They say, first, that the rapprochement with Libya came about for less than perfect reasons: It was an election year (2004), and the Bush administration was eager for some sort of diplomatic victory — and this was a big one. The administration was also eager to help Tony Blair, who was getting hammered, by his own party, and opposition party, and everyone else. Also, oil wanted back in Libya — especially British Petroleum, which was breathing down the PM’s neck.

You may ask the question: “If not normalization, what would you have given Qaddafi, in exchange for his WMD?” Some answer, “You didn’t have to go as far as we. You could have agreed not to do to him what we did to Saddam.”

Critics of the administration further say that the “freedom agenda,” or “democracy agenda,” appears to be out the window, where Libya is concerned. We seem not to be pressing for reform, or for the release of dissidents (the most prominent of whom is the ailing and incredibly brave Fathi al-Jahmi). What message does this send to liberals, democrats, and would-be reformers throughout the Middle East? Have they not had the ground cut out from under them? Are we not hypocrites?

And so on. As I said, I’m compressing severely. I know one foreign-policy hand who is especially affronted that we have taken Qaddafi off the terror list. He points out that, before 9/11, Qaddafi was just about the most prolific murderer of Americans around.

‐I wish to cite something extraordinary, from Time magazine. In 2005, they asked Qaddafi whether he was truly going to give up terror. This was before his removal from the list. And he said,

Dialogue should continue. Accusing Libya of being a country that sponsors terrorism is a very dangerous thing. That has psychological repercussions. Libya could argue, “Since I am still on the terrorist list, why not commit terrorism, which I am accused of anyway? Why should I pay the price without getting something in return?”

Chilling words, huh?

I hate to say this, but Qaddafi’s statement reminded me of something I’ve been saying about the Republican party for years: If you’re going to be accused of hating blacks and old people anyway, at least get something out of it: Take on race preferences, and reform Social Security.

Qaddafi said, “Why should I pay the price without getting something in return?” And what is that something, to be gotten? Dead and maimed bodies?

Unbelievable.

‐Wish to quote a statement that Donald Rumsfeld’s office sent me. Rumsfeld made four points:

Concerted diplomatic efforts on the part of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, coupled with a credible threat of force following the U.S. action in Afghanistan and the growing coalition pressure on the Iraqi regime, brought about the decision by Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi to terminate Libya’s WMD programs.
Not coincidentally, Gaddafi began the negotiations over his covert weapons programs in March 2003, the month Coalition combat operations in Iraq began. Nine months later, Gaddafi publicly disclosed those programs — shortly after U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein. The reasons for Gaddafi’s decision were evident.
The termination of Libya’s weapons programs was a result of the United States and Britain negotiating from a position of strength. The significant success with respect to Libya discredits any notion that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair ‘shunned diplomacy.’
Gaddafi’s decision was a wise one. It is unfortunate that Saddam Hussein refused to adopt a similar course.

‐In my view, people on both sides of the Libya debate make sense. One seasoned foreign-policy analyst cited an old joke. He used a rabbi and his wife; I first heard it about FDR and Eleanor.

A man comes to the rabbi and airs a view. The rabbi says, “You’re absolutely right.” Another man comes and airs just the opposite view. The rabbi says, “You’re absolutely right.” The rabbi’s wife, who has been overhearing this, says, “Hey! They can’t both be right!” The rabbi answers, “Dear, you’re absolutely right.”

To say it in brief: I think the U.S. was right to normalize with Libya — we do have their WMD in Tennessee. (But could we have gotten these programs without so generous a normalization?) That does not mean, however, you have to give up on democracy, freedom, reform, the release of prisoners, and all that business. After all, we had relations with the Soviet Union, the South Koreans, the Filipinos, and many others — and kept the pressure on.

‐You could quote Moammar Qaddafi till the cows come home, and MEMRI.org has all the goods — you can browse it ad infinitum. But let me confine myself to one choice bit. Here’s the colonel:

We befriend whoever befriends us, and we are hostile to those hostile to us. If America comes to Libya, it will encounter men and women who will fight it to the end. If it befriends us, we will extend our hand in friendship. Right now, I have nothing against America, except for the fact that it opposes the Palestinian people, and is destroying Iraq. Apart from this, America and I agree on everything. . . .
America is talking about liberalism now. Fine, I’m a liberal too. Liberalism means freedom. It means popular capitalism, rule by the people, people’s committees, and leadership by the people. That’s liberalism! That’s liberalism! Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom . . . No oppression, no persecution, no exploitation. America is saying these things. So that’s it, we agree.
What’s left for me to disagree with America? I was against the USSR myself, and so was America. We had no disagreement. America has said it is against WMDs. I cancelled the WMD program, and I demand that America cancel its own WMD program, and that Israelis be disarmed of their WMDs, instead of the [American] silence in their case.
We agree about all this. Great. America talks about liberties, human rights, and women’s lib — this is what I always call for, while America was against it.
Apart from Iraq, I have no problem with America. Why should there be a problem? If America is hostile to me, I will be hostile to it. If it wants to occupy my country — welcome! When it attacked me, I shot down its planes, and didn’t even care. I said to Reagan tuzz [go to hell] a million times, when I could see his fleet with my own eyes. I wasn’t afraid of him.

Yup, that’s the colonel — murderous, brutalizing nutjob. Crafty too, I’m afraid. (For Qaddafi’s complete statement on “liberalism,” etc., go here.) #JAYBOOK# ‐This has been a highly unorthodox Impromptus, hasn’t it? Not to mention long. Let’s have a little music — four reviews from the New York Sun. For the violinist Gil Shaham in recital, go here. For the pianist Andrius Zlabys in recital, go here. For the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Colin Davis, with Richard Goode, piano soloist, go here. And for the final New York concert of the Beaux Arts Trio — the band is ceasing to be, after 53 years — go here. Incidentally, there’s something queer about Menahem Pressler’s Wikipedia entry. (Pressler is the longtime pianist of the Beaux Arts — b. 1923.) That entry says he is a “Jewish-born German pianist.” Jewish-born German pianist? Not a German-born Jewish pianist? Hmm . . . ‐Finally, let me give you a story — or rather, let me relate to you something I overheard. It was during the intermission of a concert. Two women were talking. They didn’t know each other. One of the women was American-born; the other had an accent (and was about 55 years old). The first woman said to the second, “Where are you from?” The accented lady said, “Cuba.” “Oh?” said the American. “Why did you leave?” The second woman said, incredulously, “Castro!” See you.