FUNNY HOW HIS REFORMATION...:

The pariah who came in from the cold: Gadafy's visit to Paris marks a dramatic new stage in Libya's international rehabilitation (Ian Black, December 11, 2007, Guardian Unlimited)

Eventually, Gadafy began cleaning up his act. Sanctions and stalemate did the trick, and two Libyan intelligence agents were handed over for trial in a Scottish court in the Netherlands, one of them being eventually convicted. And late in 2003, in the aftermath of the Iraq war, Gadafy surrendered his weapons of mass destruction - without a shot being fired or a life being lost.

Libya came in from the cold because the cost of its isolation had become intolerable. It was not only a question of needing spare parts for the country's oil industry, embargoed by the UN, but the sense that an entire generation was cut off from the wider world.

As old enemies such as Tony Blair beat a path to the colonel's desert encampment, they cleared the way too for massive western investment, especially in the energy sector. Over the last two years, US consultants led by a professor from the Harvard Business School have drawn up a national economic reform programme.

The French, who already have close links with Maghreb neighbours Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, have been quick to grasp the new opportunities. The agreements being signed this week are worth a whopping €10bn, including a €3bn deal to buy a fleet of Airbus passenger jets, as well as possible defence contracts. And symbolising Libya's new respectability is a plan to sell it a civilian nuclear reactor, which is expected to be used to desalinate seawater. [...]

[T]he point about the Paris trip is that Gadafy's makeover as respectable global citizen has been a resounding success. The pragmatic consensus is that while Libya's "brother leader" may be around for years to come while his modernising son, Seif al-Islam, waits in the wings and the old, rogue "state of the masses" changes. The tent, the entourage, the female bodyguards and the movable desert ambience could be heading your way soon.

...coincides with Iran dropping its nuke program and some other event in the region, eh?

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 14, 2007 8:55 AM