The Faulty Premise of Pre-emption

[Gimpy]

The Faulty Premise of Pre-emption


By GEOFF D. PORTER


The Bush administration took a new approach to North Korea this month: it suggested that Kim Jong Il follow the example set by Muammar el-Qaddafi. John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, urged North Korea to follow Libya's "strategic choice" and voluntarily dismantle its nuclear weapons programs.
But if this approach is based on the assumption that Libya acted to avoid a pre-emptive attack, then its premise is flawed. The United States' pre-emptive invasion of Iraq did not play a large role in bringing about Libya's rapprochement. Contrary to the Bush administration's assertions, Libya's dismantled weapons program is not evidence that a policy of pre-emptive strikes works, and it is disingenuous to argue that it will produce the same results in North Korea.

There are several problems with the notion that Colonel Qaddafi's decision to come clean was a direct result of an aggressive United States foreign policy. For one, the history of Colonel Qaddafi's turnaround does not bear out the administration's assertion.

Second is the disproportionate weight the administration gives to its foreign policy's influence on Libyan decision makers. Libya has its own social, economic and political concerns and these concerns have always been uppermost in Colonel Qaddafi's efforts to maintain hold on power.

It is possible that the Bush administration's policy did nudge Colonel Qaddafi forward, but discussions for Libya's return to the international community began under the Clinton administration. In 1999, Libya extradited two men implicated in the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, a decade earlier. The same year, it agreed to pay compensation for the victims of the bombing of a French airliner, UTA Flight 772, whose destruction over Niger was traced back to Libya. Discussions between the United States and Libya about its weapons of mass destruction programs also began that year. These discussions finally bore fruit last fall with Colonel Qaddafi's decision to renounce these weapons. It is true that this announcement came after Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed, but is a mistake to link these two events.

Why? For one, history argues against it: Colonel Qaddafi did not respond to direct military strikes ordered by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, even when they cost the life of his adopted daughter. It would be misleading to suggest that this time around he was brought to heel by the mere specter of military action. Instead, Colonel Qaddafi's decision to abandon his weapons programs was motivated by domestic concerns.

For 35 years Colonel Qaddafi has used oil to buy allegiance from Libyans. In exchange for their turning a blind eye to the lack of representative government and human rights abuses, Colonel Qaddafi is openhanded in distributing Libya's oil proceeds, sometimes as direct gifts to influential people and tribal leaders, but also in the form of state-financed health care, huge urban development projects and universal free education. But two decades of American and United Nations sanctions diminished Libyan oil revenues. The country's oil fields were declining, exploration was all but halted, and Libya was forbidden to import new oil extraction technology.

At the same time, Libya's population was booming. In 1982 there were slightly fewer than three million people in Libya. By 2002, there were more than five million. In some cities, the annual growth rate topped an astronomical (and problematic) 7 percent. The mixture of population growth and declining oil revenues endangered Colonel Qaddafi's ability to hold on to power.
Starting in the mid-1990's a younger generation of reformers, led by Prime Minister Shukri Ghanem, began to convince Colonel Qaddafi that he could not maintain his rule without more income. With virtually no other resources, increasing oil revenue was the only option, but to do this Colonel Qaddafi needed sanctions lifted. The steps that he took in regard to the Lockerbie bombing, the UTA flight and finally the renunciation of weapons of mass destruction were all aimed at removing sanctions. They have now been lifted, energy companies are jockeying to get into Libya, and the first shipments of Libyan oil arrived in the United States last month.

By citing Libya's reform as the outcome of a threatening foreign policy stance, the Bush administration is substantiating a foreign policy doctrine on false premises. Colonel Qaddafi brought Libya in from the cold not because he was afraid that the United States might topple him, but because he was afraid of losing his grip on power domestically. The Bush administration should then not express surprise that Kim Jong Il dismissed the United States' most recent overtures as a "sham.'' Pre-emptive policy did not work in Libya and it is unlikely to work in North Korea either.


Geoff D. Porter is the North Africa expert analyst at the Eurasia Group, a research and consulting firm.

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