Qadhafi deserves to be treated as a pariah in the world community.
—Ronald Reagan, 1986
Reagan has to read history. He reads cheap hollywood scenarios and that is the problem of the world today—namely, a second rate actor becomes the president of the biggest power.
—Qaddafi, 1986
Diplomatic relations between the United States and Libya were not good at any time after 1969, and they became especially strained after 1979, when the Libyan government did little to protect the United States Embassy in Tripoli when it was stormed by Libyan students in the early days of the Iranian hostage crisis. The two governments tried to coexist with a mutually unsatisfactory diplomatic relationship which neither seemed willing either to improve or to terminate. The state of affairs took a turn for the worse with the election of Ronald Reagan. Once in office, Reagan systematically increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressure on Libya. Colonel Qaddafi, unfairly and inaccurately characterized as a Soviet puppet, was labeled an international pariah to be restrained if not replaced. Within a year, the Reagan administration had fundamentally altered U.S. policy toward Libya in both the diplomatic and commercial arenas. In the process, Washington came to recognize Qaddafi not as an inconvenience but as an enemy.
At the outset of the Reagan administration, three features characterized U.S. policy in the Middle East. The dominant concern was the threat of Soviet invasion or some form of international aggression in support of Soviet objectives by the Soviet-backed radical states in the region. Given the overriding importance of the Soviet threat, the second characteristic of U.S. foreign policy was the tendency to neglect other problems until they forced themselves to center stage as full-blown international crises. Finally, a lack of clarity and predictability in U.S. policy, especially toward local issues, undermined the American position in the Middle East more than did any question of power or will. This last feature characterized U.S. foreign policy even after September 1982, when the Reagan administration altered course and made progress toward an Arab-Israeli settlement a main priority in the region.1
Within the general context of its overall Middle East policy, the Reagan administration pursued a number of interrelated objectives in its increasingly confrontational policy towards Libya. First, it aimed to reassert American power and influence in the world and especially in the Middle East. It hoped a swift and effective response to acts of international terrorism would demonstrate American competence to deal with any challenge of extremism anywhere. Second, Washington aimed to foster credibility with moderate Arab states by restoring international respect for the United States as a reliable friend and ally. At the same time, the Reagan administration intended to send a message to the Soviet Union to the effect that the new administration would not tolerate lawless activity on the part of Moscow or its surrogates. Viewing Qaddafi as little more that a Soviet agent, the Reagan administration believed his elimination would reduce the influence of the Soviet Union in Africa and the Middle East. Finally, the U.S. government aimed to squeeze Qaddafi militarily to deter Libya from the pursuit of what Washington saw as subversive and destabilizing activities.2
In contrast to the policies of the Reagan administration, Libyan foreign policy in the early 1980s evidenced no major change in content or direction.3 The Arab-Israeli conflict in general and the Palestinian issue in particular remained Qaddafi’s central concern and the most visible and influential aspect of Libyan foreign policy. No compromise was seen possible with the so-called Zionist enemy; only military force could solve the problem. Arab unity remained the ideal path to Arab victory. The radical oil policies of the 1970s, on the other hand, proved more difficult to pursue in the ensuing decade. A global recession, combined with conservation efforts by the leading industrial states, resulted in a sharp decline in oil prices in 1981. Libyan oil revenues plummeted from $24 billion in 1980 to less than $14 billion in 1981. Lower oil revenues continued after 1982 as world recession and an embargo on Libyan oil by the United States combined with a world oil glut to restrain Libyan oil exports.4
Nevertheless, the Qaddafi regime continued with obvious enthusiasm its revolutionary activities abroad. In addition to the Palestinian movement and a wide range of African states, Tripoli provided economic and political support to several Central American states, including El Salvador and Nicaragua, in the early 1980s.5 Libyan involvement in Chad, which began in the early 1970s, culminated in a full-scale military intervention in late 1980. A Libyan announcement in January 1981 that Chad and Libya were set to merge, an act many governments viewed as annexation not merger, provoked considerable criticism in and outside Africa. It was only in late 1981 that Libyan military forces were forced to withdraw from Chad. When asked whether Libya was acting as a Soviet surrogate in Chad, Chester Crocker, then Assistant Secretary of State Designate for African Affairs, bundled the actions of Libya and the Soviet Union in a manner that became characteristic of the Reagan administration:
It would seem to me that there is some—how should we put it—”overlap” in the interests and motivations of the Soviets and the Libyans. I do not believe the Soviets would claim to have control over Colonel Qaddhafi, and I am certain the Libyans would not accept that formulation. But their purposes may well be compatible in a number of situations, and they wind up achieving results which are not helpful to our interests or to those of many African countries.6
Finally, in the wake of alleged Libyan assassination threats on the U.S. ambassadors to France, Italy, and the Sudan, an official U.S. claim surfaced in 1981 that the Qaddafi regime had dispatched an assassination team to Washington to kill President Reagan and top administration officials.7 Even though this claim was dismissed out of hand by the Libyan government and no evidence to substantiate it was ever produced, Qaddafi was talking publicly as early as 1981 about the right of the Libyan people to assassinate Libyan dissidents living abroad.8 In testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Assistant Secretary Crocker addressed this issue as he sketched a picture of Qaddafi as an enemy of the United States:
Under Colonel Qadhafi, Libya has adopted a diplomacy of subversion in Africa and in the Arab world. It is a diplomacy of unprecedented obstruction to our own interests and objectives. Qadhafi has tried in every way he could think of to obstruct our efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East. He has sponsored subversion from Africa to the Philippines. He actively has supported international terrorism using assassinations abroad as an instrument of his policy.
Perhaps the most bizarre and pernicious Libyan policy under Gadhafi has been the claim to a right to murder Libyan dissidents on foreign soil anywhere, a claim repeated by Qadhafi again this spring and one which seems to have led to the assassination of Libyan nationals in several countries.9
The Soviet-Libyan relationship expanded in these tumultuous times, despite policy differences from Afghanistan to Chad, which in turn increased the apprehension of the Reagan administration. Following an announcement in 1975 that the Soviet Union would provide Libya with its first nuclear reactor, Moscow agreed in 1978 to construct a nuclear power plant and research center with a capacity of 300 megawatts. By 1981 the two governments were discussing a further expansion of their nuclear cooperation efforts to include a power station with two 400-megawatt units. During a 1981 visit to Moscow Qaddafi also concluded additional technical and economic cooperation agreements covering a variety of areas, including oil and gas, nonferrous metals, and irrigation. While Qaddafi never pursued the preposterous 1978 threat to join the Warsaw Pact, there were repeated rumors that Moscow and Tripoli might conclude a twenty-year treaty of friendship and cooperation similar to Soviet accords with Iraq, South Yemen, and Syria. Moreover, Libya continued to buy sophisticated Soviet arms, and in July 1981 two Soviet frigates visited the naval base at Tripoli, the first reported visit by Soviet naval forces to a Libyan base. Speaking at the twelfth anniversary celebration of the One September Revolution, less than two weeks after the United States downed two Libyan jets in the Gulf of Sirte, Qaddafi threatened to attack U.S. nuclear depots around the Mediterranean Sea and stated that Libya might be forced to ally itself with one of the superpower camps:
There is no such thing as neutrality during a time of war or in a widescale confrontation such as the one now between Libya and the United States. If a world war breaks out, there will be nothing called neutrality, because if you are neutral than you would raise a white flag and capitulate.
In the end, our existence is more important than neutrality. The defeat of our enemy is the goal and is more important than neutrality. By God, if we were faced by a small state we would not have any need for alignment or to enter into alliance with others.
But to be attacked by the United States and with the 6th Fleet, by aircraft carriers and nuclear missiles. . . . Therefore, we are forced to reconsider our life. . . . There is no neutrality. In case war breaks out we must join one of the camps and fight our enemy. We must join the enemy of our enemy because he is our friend.
At the forthcoming session of the popular committees, I shall personally present to them the question of discussing Libya’s foreign policy and the question of neutrality and our position in the world.10
In its first concrete public step against Libya, the Reagan administration in May 1981 closed the Libyan People’s Bureau in Washington. The closure order cited a wide range of Libyan provocations and misconduct including alleged support for international terrorism. In a series of related steps, all Libyan visa applications were subjected to a mandatory security advisory opinion and U.S. oil companies operating in Libya were advised to begin an orderly reduction in the number of American citizens working there. Other elements of the widening campaign against Libya included enhanced coordination of U.S. policy with its European allies and a calculated threat of military intervention. The NATO allies were requested to reject state visits by Qaddafi and to continue or expand existing embargos on arms deliveries and oil exploration.11
Military force was first employed in August 1981, when the U.S. Navy, in the process of challenging Libyan maritime claims to the Gulf of Sirte, shot down two Libyan aircraft. The first of many American-Libyan confrontations in this area of the Mediterranean Sea had occurred as early as March 1973, when Libyan Mirage fighters attacked but did not damage a U.S. Air Force RC-130 reconnaissance plane operating off the Libyan coast. In October 1973 the Libyan government declared that portion of the Mediterranean south of 32 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude, in effect the entire Gulf of Sirte, to be an integral part of the Libyan Arab Republic and under its complete sovereignty and jurisdiction. Libya identified the Gulf of Sirte as a bay, despite the fact its 250-mile wide opening was far in excess of the 24-mile maximum width allowed for a bay in the 1958 Geneva Convention on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone, and argued that it had exercised effective sovereignty throughout history and without dispute. The U.S. government immediately characterized the Libyan assertion of sovereignty over the Gulf of Sirte as a violation of both recognized international law and the long established principle of freedom of the seas. Thereafter, the U.S. Sixth Fleet challenged Libyan claims to sovereignty in the area by conducting periodic air and naval exercises in the Gulf of Sirte. It was during one of these exercises, which had been publicly announced well in advance, that two F-14 Tomcats from the Sixth Fleet downed two Soviet-built Su-22 Fitter ground attack planes in mid-August 1981.12
About the same time, reliable reports began to circulate of wider clandestine activity by the United States, including disinformation, propaganda dissemination, sabotage, and support for dissident groups. Claudia Wright, for example, reported in 1981 that officials from Saudi Arabia and Tunisia had confirmed privately that they had been told by Reagan administration officials that Qaddafi would be eliminated before the end of the year.13 A variety of other news sources also suggested that large-scale operations were under way to overthrow the Qaddafi regime. In addition, a regular stream of disinformation on Libyan terrorism was leaked to the Western press by a variety of sources. The disinformation campaign concentrated on a few selected themes, such as Qaddafi the lunatic, Libya the Soviet proxy, Qaddafi the major source of international terrorism, and repressive Libya, all of which were also reflected increasingly in official statements from the U.S. government. A final element in the covert campaign was the aggressive recruitment and mobilization of Libyan dissidents.14
To further isolate Libya, Washington increased its economic and political support for African states, including Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Sudan, resisting Libyan interventionism. The United States also allocated $12 million to support the Organization of African Unity (OAU) peacekeeping force, which arrived in Chad following the withdrawal of Libyan troops, conducted joint military exercises with Egyptian and Sudanese forces, and bolstered the Liberian military regime with an extensive economic and military aid program. The much-publicized adventurism of the Qaddafi regime had clearly provoked an American response; nevertheless, some observers questioned whether Qaddafi’s actions warranted such wide-ranging measures and whether the Reagan response was really in the national interest. Critics pointed out that U.S. policies threatened to foster the Soviet-Libyan relationship by increasing Qaddafi’s sense of isolation and thus pushing him toward closer ties to Moscow. The actions of the Reagan administration also revitalized a flagging Libyan patriotism at a time when radical socioeconomic and political changes, combined with widespread repression at home and abroad, had increased opposition to Qaddafi and his revolutionary government.15
The viewpoint in most Western European capitals differed from that in Washington in at least two significant areas. While acknowledging Qaddafi’s anti-Western behavior, many European analysts argued that he was not as dangerous as the Reagan administration maintained. In support of this position, they cited his foreign policy failures in Chad and Uganda together with his alienation of African and Middle Eastern leaders. Second, many West Europeans felt it was a mistake to isolate Qaddafi, setting him up as the prime example of the kind of international behavior that President Reagan refused to accept. Instead, they argued in support of maintaining dialogue with the Libyan government as a means to protect Western economic interests and to keep Libya from developing even closer ties with the Soviet Union.16
Over the next several months, the Reagan administration continued to pressure the Qaddafi regime, with much of the emphasis now on bilateral economic relations. In March 1982 the U.S. government, charging that Libya was actively supporting terrorist and subversive activities, announced an embargo on Libyan oil and imposed an export-license requirement for all American goods destined for Libya with the exception of food, medicine, and medical supplies. While the imposition of the oil embargo sparked little informed comment at the time, it marked the end of a policy and a policy process, the separation of American commercial and political policies toward Libya, pursued by successive Republican and Democratic administrations since 1969. Washington also urged its allies in Western Europe to support the imposition of economic sanctions, but for various reasons they all politely declined.17
Qaddafi was on a state visit to Austria, his first official visit to a European state, when the American sanctions were announced. In early 1983, the U.S. government dispatched AWACS aircraft to Egypt in response to an alleged Libyan threat to the Sudanese government. Once the aircraft had returned to the United States, Secretary of State George Shultz, when asked what threat Libya now posed for the Sudan, responded that “at least for the moment, Khadaffi is back in his box where he belongs.” Although the crisis quickly subsided, the aggressive American response embarrassed the Egyptian government and thus underlined once again the difficulty of sanctioning Libyan policies without incurring the wrath of other Arab and African states. Later in the year, President Reagan again publicly urged Western European governments to curb exports to Libya.18
The increased pressure of the Reagan administration came at a time when the external policies of the Qaddafi regime were under siege in Africa and the Middle East. After intervening in Chad in the winter of 1980–81, Libyan forces were forced to withdraw some ten months later in the face of heavy Western and African pressure. Moreover, the debacle in Chad was only the first in a series of foreign policy disasters endured by the Libyan government over the next eighteen months. The downing of two Libyan aircraft in autumn 1981 and the March 1982 embargo on Libyan oil exports have already been mentioned. In fall 1982, attempts to convene an OAU summit with Qaddafi as chairman broke down completely, in large part due to widespread opposition to Libyan policies in sub-Saharan Africa. In the course of the negotiations, American diplomats lobbied actively in support of shifting both the venue of the OAU summit and its presidency from Libya. Vice President George Bush later downplayed the role played by the United States in this regard, but he was clearly satisfied with the result:
Well, let me be very clear on Qaddafi. We don’t like what Qaddafi stands for, and I’ll be very honest in saying that we don’t like his support of international terrorism. We are opposed to his destabilization of neighboring countries. Having said that, I will repeat, the deliberations of the Organization of African Unity are for the Organization of African Unity to determine. And we have our differences with Qaddafi, and I’m very happy to go into them for you but since we do not see him as a stabilizing influence anywhere in this continent or any place else, and anyone who avows the international use of terror for political change will have our opposition. . . . Having said that, the deliberations in the past at OAU and who heads it up and all of that, that is a matter for the Organization of African Unity. And that is our position.19
Qaddafi contributed to his growing isolation by refusing to attend an Arab summit meeting in Fez, Morocco, and later attacking as treasonable the peace proposals adopted there. When the OAU summit finally opened in Addis Ababa in June 1983, it was chaired by the Ethiopian head of state. Following a cameo appearance, Qaddafi hastily departed the meeting, having suffered the double indignity of being denied the chairmanship and seeing his protégé, the Polisario Front, effectively barred from the conference.20
Libyan vulnerability at the time to economic sanctions was less understood but equally important. By 1980, the spontaneous takeover of most economic sectors by militants of the Qaddafi regime, even though the banking and oil sectors were still exempt, was having a chilling effect on relations between the Libyan government and U.S. oil companies. The growing animosity with Libya prompted several American oil companies to reconsider their investments in Libya, although a threshold had not yet been reached that prompted actual disinvestment. The exposed position of the Libyan government at the outset of the decade was not immediately recognizable for two related reasons. Uncertainly in the oil market after the Iranian revolution more than doubled the price of Libyan crude, and a lucrative spot market existed in Amsterdam where excess oil could be dumped at high prices. Nevertheless, Libya appeared vulnerable if the U.S. government initiated a boycott of Libyan oil exports. With its dependence on a few European countries and the United States, fully one-third of national income would be abruptly lost with no readily available alternative markets for Libyan crude oil.21
Libya’s economic fortunes declined sharply after 1981, which further complicated its diplomatic problems. The Qaddafi regime, faced with a worldwide recession, a world oil glut, and a U.S. embargo on Libyan crude oil, continued to pursue a maximalist pricing policy, with the predictable result that oil production dropped precipitously. From the fourth quarter of 1981 to the first quarter of 1982, oil production dropped some 70 percent while oil revenues from mid-1981 to mid-1982 were less than half those of the previous twelve-month period. The ongoing purchase of sophisticated, expensive military equipment, together with the unscheduled costs of the war in Chad, aggravated Libya’s constrained economic circumstances.22
Even though military spending was not seriously curtailed after 1981, Libya’s economic straits did have a negative impact on several aspects of its external policy. As revenues fell, the Libyan government attempted to settle an estimated $4 billion in debt to foreign contractors by imposing unfavorable barter deals or countertrade oil sales. The ensuing talks, generally conducted on a government-to-government level, were acrimonious and prolonged. At the same time, an element of blackmail often crept into the negotiations, with Libya agreeing to pay the money owed for completed projects but only if the other party agreed to buy more Libyan crude oil.23
In February 1983 the General People’s Congress registered its intent to reduce the foreign work force, but nothing more was said or done until Libya suddenly initiated massive deportations in August 1984. With alarm mounting over the regime’s financial health, some 45,000 workers, mostly Egyptians and Tunisians, were suddenly expelled for the purpose of reducing the level of worker remittances. Although the Libyan government maintained that all foreign workers, with the sole exception of Palestinians, would be affected, in practice almost all deportees were citizens of countries with which Libya had poor diplomatic relations. The deportations underscored the polarization that occurred in the Maghrib following the conclusion of the Algeria-Tunisia Accord in 1983 and the Libya-Morocco Treaty of Oujda in 1984.24
Financial constraints also reduced Libya’s influence in many countries, especially in Africa, where economic and military aid were more important than the ideology outlined in Qaddafi’s Green Book. In addition, a number of smaller states south of the Sahara were embittered by the sudden expulsion of workers due to the economic importance of their remittances to local and national economies. Inside Libya, the imposition of austerity measures, coupled with other unpopular domestic policies like liberalized divorce laws, universal conscription, and reduced educational facilities, combined to increase markedly domestic opposition to the Qaddafi government.25
Nevertheless, Qaddafi pressed forward with the showpiece Great Manmade River project, an ambitious scheme to transport water from desert aquifers to the coast. In November 1983 the Libyan government awarded the contract for Phase I to the Dong Ah Consortium of South Korea. The project was originally conceived of as a five-year, $25-billion effort in five phases; later estimates pushed the completion date to 2020. Brown and Root (UK), the British subsidiary of an American company experienced in civil engineering work, was the management services and engineering contractor for the project. The nature of the Brown and Root connection later proved controversial because the embargo imposed by the Reagan administration allowed subsidiaries of U.S. companies to earn money in Libya and send the profits home as long as the American parent company had no role in managing the operations and no Americans were involved. As a result, Brown and Root (UK) continued to do business in Libya throughout the embargo years.26
Growing internal dissent heightened the vulnerability of the Libyan government in the early 1980s. Informed observers estimated that there were as many coup attempts in 1980–83 as there had been in the previous ten years, and there was no letup in subsequent years. The level of discontent was high and encompassed a diverse cross section of society. Not surprisingly, the elite of the old regime were among the first to separate from the revolutionary government. The next group to become disenchanted were the conservative nationalists, who generally supported Qaddafi’s early adherence to Arab nationalist causes and the removal of symbols of Libyan dependence on the West but were anything but social revolutionaries. Disenchantment among the religious establishment grew as Qaddafi implemented the dictates contained in the Green Book. His attack on private property, for example, included the religious endowments that provided the financial support of the ulama or religious elite. Concern also grew within the ranks of the military as Qaddafi moved to create a new society without police or traditional armed forces.27
Despite the apparent vulnerability of the Qaddafi regime, the economic embargo imposed by the United States in 1982 did not in itself change Libyan behavior. American companies with economic ties to Libya, on the other hand, were among the losers. When the Reagan administration blocked delivery of a large order of Boeing airliners, for example, Libya switched to Europe’s Airbus Industrie. In a December 1981 op-ed piece in the New York Times, Lisa Anderson, a highly respected academic and observer of the Libyan scene, encouraged the Reagan administration to ignore Qaddafi: “American harassment of Colonel Qaddafi and condemnation of his policies only lend credence to his repeated complaints about interference by the United States in the internal affairs of other countries, a resonant theme in the third world.” The Western European allies of the United States largely agreed with her position, and by refusing to participate in the U.S. campaign of economic pressure on Libya they reaped substantial commercial benefit from their policy of inclusion.28
The policy of the Reagan administration toward Libya at this time was driven by an inaccurate perception that regional difficulties in Africa and elsewhere were the product of a global strategy planned and organized by the Soviet Union. In contrast to the Carter administration, which tended to emphasize regional sources for regional problems, the Reagan administration viewed Libyan pressure against the Sudan or Tunisia, for example, as simply part and parcel of a broader external challenge orchestrated from Moscow. This globalist approach, with a principal concern for East-West competition, often caused the United States to be insensitive to regional goals and priorities, if not to misread them:
A globalist orientation, which includes an inclination to punish enemies, leads the Reagan administration to an exaggerated sense of threat from the Soviet Union and its perceived military allies, such as Libya. Such a perspective results in irrational, self-defeating policies (the embargo on Libyan oil, for example), which are not the most effective means of containing Soviet influences. When it is remembered that Libya was one of only two Arab states that did not take part in the 1973 oil embargo against the United States, then an oil cutoff that pushes Qaddafi closer to one’s superpower rival, and risks future access to petroleum reserves in times of need, seems imprudent.29
Although the Reagan administration later approved a large-scale sale of American grain to Libya for the first time since 1982, its policy here proved an aberration on the road to tougher sanctions. Washington in 1984 restricted the movement of Libyan diplomats accredited to the United Nations under the toughest regulations applied to any government delegation. Secretary of State Shultz, when asked to comment on yet another dispatch of AWACS planes to the region, summarized the policy of the Reagan administration:
We see a pattern of behavior on the part of Libya that is outside the pale of internationally acceptable behavior. We have sent our AWACS to the region at request, and they are there in a supportive role, and we have wanted the Libyans and others to know that fact and to know what their role is.30
Qaddafi later canceled plans to visit the United Nations in October 1985 to participate in fortieth anniversary celebrations, on the grounds that UN headquarters were located in a country that was an enemy of humanity and a leader in international terrorism.31 In November 1985 the Reagan administration, under pressure from congressional representatives from the oil-producing regions of the United States, banned the import of all Libyan petroleum products. A series of press reports throughout November indicated that President Reagan had also authorized a CIA covert operation designed to undermine the Qaddafi regime.32 Robert Gates, acting CIA director at the time, later went on record in a classified document, eventually declassified in 1991, stating that the CIA had not authorized an invasion of Libya in mid-1985. “At no time has Acting Director Gates recommended an invasion of Libya. Moreover, any insinuation that Mr. Gates in July 1985 encouraged such action is unfounded.” A handwritten note on the document indicated the statement was “not used—on record—only if asked.”33
A series of terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities and citizens in 1985 were behind the escalating pressure of the Reagan administration. In July terrorists with alleged ties to Libya bombed the Copenhagen offices of Northwest Orient Airlines. Two months later an extreme Palestinian group, headed by Abu Nidal and with strong connections to Libya, purportedly bombed a cafe next to the U.S. embassy in Rome. In October terrorists seized the Achille Lauro, an Italian cruise ship, in Egyptian waters and brutally murdered Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly American confined to a wheelchair. The seizure of the vessel was ordered by Mohammed Abu Abbas, who later received a hero’s welcome in Libya after his release by Italian authorities. In November Abu Nidal commandos, believed to have been trained in Libya, seized an EgyptAir jet, with fifty-nine people eventually being killed. Later in the same month a U.S. military post exchange was firebombed in Frankfurt, Germany. Abu Nidal struck again in late December with coordinated attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports that killed twenty-five people, including five Americans. The Reagan administration charged Libyan complicity, if not actual involvement, in all these attacks, although concrete evidence was never produced.34
In the aftermath of the December 1985 terrorist attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports, Washington again increased the pressure on Libya by terminating all direct economic activities, freezing Libyan assets in the United States, and calling on the 1,000 to 1,500 Americans working in Libya to return home. At the same time, the Reagan administration urged the governments of Western Europe to join in imposing economic and political sanctions on Libya and again received a half-hearted response. The equivocal response of European Community (EC) governments was based on a variety of interrelated arguments. The thrust of these arguments could be grouped under a few general headings, but subtle and significant differences in emphasis and approach often differentiated the policies of individual governments. In addition, many European states voiced a bifurcated response depending on their interpretation of the impact of specific American or Libyan policies. To take the French government as an example, Paris refused to allow American aircraft to pass through French airspace on their way to bomb Libyan targets exactly two months after the French had bombed Libyan-backed opposition forces in Chad. Arguing first that violence was not an effective approach to oppose terrorism, the French later opposed the 15 April raid on the grounds that they had favored stronger action.35
Commercial relations with Libya obviously affected European policy, but it was never the dominant factor some Reagan administration officials and other commentators suggested. Italy and West Germany enjoyed especially strong trading links with Libya, and most of the other states in western Europe depended to some degree on steady supplies of Libyan oil. Great Britain was the only real exception because, once North Sea oilfields began producing crude of a similar high quality, it no longer needed Libyan exports. On the other hand, it was interesting to note that British exports to Libya showed remarkedly little disruption in the wake of the break in diplomatic relations following the April 1984 Libyan embassy siege in London and the death of an English policewoman. The question of trade was then complicated by the relatively large number of European expatriates residing in Libya whose personal safety was a constant concern. The Foreign Office described the situation succinctly in April 1986, when it warned Britons resident in Libya that there was a distinct limitation to the consular protection that could be provided.36
In the aftermath of the collapse in oil prices and the resultant reduction in Libyan development projects, the importance of commercial considerations diminished. While statistics were not always precise, the available information suggested that overall Libyan imports in 1985 dropped around 20 percent over 1984, with those originating in Italy and West Germany falling 23 percent and 36 percent respectively. Moreover, the availability of oil at reduced prices elsewhere, coupled with Libya’s poor payment record, reduced the attractiveness of the few development projects still active. At the same time, European creditors like Italy, which in 1986 was owed some $800 million by Libya, remained concerned that EC policies not provoke the Qaddafi regime into ending attempts to settle arrears.37
More than one European government also argued that Washington was not really serious in its application of economic sanctions and that such sanctions in any case were not really effective. The governments of France and Italy in particular were reluctant to support the policies of the Reagan administration because they did not believe Washington was serious in its progressive application of economic sanctions. They asked publicly why they should put their relatively greater commercial relations as risk for what they viewed as little more than a symbolic demonstration of disapproval of Libyan policy. The strength of this argument, of course, was later diluted by the Reagan administration’s termination on 1 February 1986 of virtually all commercial intercourse between Libya and the United States. More to the point, several European governments, in particular Great Britain, argued forcibly that history had shown a policy of economic sanctions to be seldom effective.38
Many EC governments also felt that the overall American approach to terrorism in general and Libya in particular was in error; they believed it addressed only the symptoms of the disease and not the cause, which they saw as the Palestinian question. The governments of France, Greece, and Italy in particular supported the Palestinian cause to a greater degree than did the United States, emphasizing the issue was largely a political one to be resolved through negotiation. In this milieu, the use of force or even the threat to use force by the United States produced widespread dismay across the European political spectrum where it was generally felt that force would not address the issue in a positive way and could result in an increase in the level of terrorism. Finally, a belief that the antiterrorist policies of the Reagan administration were fatally flawed only reinforced the long-standing determination of many European governments to pursue a foreign policy autonomous from the United States.39
Selected European governments also pointed to the absence of explicit proof of Libyan complicity in terrorist acts, a connection admittedly often difficult to make with state-sponsored terrorism. Over time, the governments of Austria, Greece, and Italy, in particular, addressed considerable significance to this question. The Italian government in early 1986, for example, took the position that it would maintain its privileged position with Libya until such time as firm proof emerged that the Qaddafi regime was supporting terrorist groups. In a similar vein, the Papandreou government in Athens first agreed to EC measures to reduce diplomatic relations with Libya, but later distanced itself from the accord pending explicit proof of Libyan involvement in state-sponsored terrorism.40
In early January 1986, President Reagan stepped up the rhetoric when he termed Qaddafi a pariah who must be isolated from the world community.
On December 27th, terrorists, as we know, attacked the Rome and Vienna international airports. It was the latest in a series of atrocities which have shocked the conscience of the world.
It’s clear that the responsibility for these latest attacks lies squarely with the terrorist known as Abu Nidal and his organization. . . .
But these murderers could not carry out their crimes without the sanctuary and support provided by regimes such as Colonel Qadhafi’s in Libya. Qadhafi’s long-standing involvement in terrorism is well documented, and there’s irrefutable evidence of his role in these attacks. The Rome and Vienna murders are only the latest in a series of brutal terrorist acts committed with Qadhafi’s backing.
Qadhafi and other Libyan officials have publicly admitted that the Libyan Government has abetted and supported the notorious Abu Nidal terrorist group, which was directly responsible for the Rome and Vienna attacks. Qadhafi called them heroic actions, and I call them criminal outrages by an outlaw regime.
Qadhafi deserves to be treated as a pariah in the world community.41
Three weeks later, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Richard Murphy reiterated U.S. policy toward Libya, adding a stern warning to Qaddafi:
There are three underlying messages of our policy toward Libya. First, the United States made the unambiguous statement that we will not continue to do business with a person who has placed himself far outside the boundaries of civilized conduct. Secondly, the measures announced by President Reagan make the point that Qadhafi’s continued support for terrorism carries a cost for Libya. . . .
Thirdly, the steps we have taken to date are not the most severe actions that could be levied against Qadhafi. In light of the heinous nature of terrorist acts, these are modest measures. If Libyan aid to terrorists continues, however, the U.S. has the option of imposing a range of more severe actions.42
At this point, President Reagan, for the third time since taking office, examined the option of a military strike against Libya but once more chose to limit his reaction to diplomatic and economic measures in part because the administration was split over the question of appropriate response. Secretary of State Shultz and Secretary of Defense Weinberger strongly disagreed over the advisability of military action. Weinberger disputed Shultz’s position that military force should be employed even in the absence of explicit proof of Libyan complicity in a specific terrorist act. Secretary Weinberger argued it would be a mistake to seek instant gratification from a bombing act without worrying about the details. He also raised the basic question of whether the use of force would serve to discourage and diminish terrorism in the future. Other considerations in the president’s decision not to employ military force at this time were said to be his concern for the safety of American citizens still living in Libya, the possibility of an anti-American reaction elsewhere in the region, and the loss of American aircraft and lives. On the other hand, covert action against Libya aimed at undermining the Qaddafi regime reportedly increased.43
The Reagan administration by early 1986 had clearly singled out Libya as an example of American resolve to combat terrorism with the toughest possible response. Although many observers had concluded that states like Iran and Syria were more important sponsors of terrorism, the Reagan administration focused on Libya because it was considered the softest target:
The despicable Qadhafi was a perfect target, a cartoon character Americans loved to hate. Qadhafi had praised the Christmas 1985 machine gun massacres at the Rome and Vienna airports as “honorable.” He had decidedly odd personal habits: he reportedly liked to use makeup, wear women’s clothing, and travel with a teddy bear. . . . But for an administration looking for a simple victory in its confused war against terrorism, there was no easier mark. Libya was neither strategically nor militarily formidable. Taking Qadhafi on was the counterterrorism equivalent of invading Grenada—popular, relatively safe, and theatrically satisfying. As the spring unfolded, the White House campaign against him quickened.44
Events in the Mediterranean in spring 1986 moved inexorably toward armed conflict. The casus belli proved to be American determination to contest Libya’s claim to sovereignty over the Gulf of Sirte. The U.S. government, as suggested earlier, based its legal position in the dispute on a 1958 convention on the territorial sea and contiguous zone, to which Libya was not a party, that permitted nations to claim coastal embayments only up to twenty-four miles in width. In the face of renewed freedom of navigation maneuvers in the disputed waters, Libya reacted predictably in mid-March 1986 with an attack on the U.S. flotilla that failed to inflict damage. U.S. forces responded in turn with a coordinated attack that sank several Libyan craft and damaged Libyan missile sites. Qaddafi’s public response to the worsening crisis was all threat and bombast. Pledging to defend what he termed the “line of death” across the mouth of the Gulf of Sirte, Qaddafi threatened to broaden the struggle against the United States and boasted of plans to confront it militarily. Privately, he took a totally different tack. Using various Arab and European governments, including Saudi Arabia, as intermediaries, Qaddafi attempted to open a dialogue with the Reagan administration. Washington responded that it had no interest in opening any dialogue, either direct or indirect, with the Qaddafi regime.45
At this point, a report surfaced in the Western press that U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican William A. Wilson had earlier engaged in freelance diplomacy, making an unauthorized visit to Libya in late 1985. Qaddafi had revealed in a media interview in January 1986 that he had recently met with an official of the American government, but it was not until March that Wilson’s visit to Libya became public knowledge. The Department of State, apparently unaware of the Wilson initiative, denied that the ambassador was authorized to speak on behalf of the Reagan administration. Ambassador Wilson, a close personal friend of President Reagan, was otherwise not reprimanded, despite Secretary of State Shultz’s insistence that he be recalled. Wilson remained at his post until May 1986.46
Following renewed air and naval confrontations in the Gulf of Sirte and the bombing of the La Belle discotheque in West Berlin, on 14 April 1986 U.S. aircraft attacked what the Reagan administration termed centers of Libyan terrorist activity and training in Benghazi and Tripoli. Administration spokespersons claimed they had irrefutable evidence of Libyan involvement in the La Belle attack. Secretary of State Shultz solemnly described the information as the “smoking gun” the administration had been looking for. Eventually, the source of American intelligence, radio intercepts of Libyan communications, was made public, a revelation that undoubtedly weakened future intelligence collection efforts against Libya. The radio intercepts mollified critics at the time, but questions were later raised as to the governments actually responsible for the bombing.47 President Reagan justified the attacks as appropriate retaliation for the Berlin bombing as well as for dozens of other terrorist acts linked to Libya:
My fellow Americans: At 7 o’clock this evening eastern time air and naval forces of the United States launched a series of strikes against the headquarters, terrorist facilities, and military assets that support Mu’ammar Qadhafi’s subversive activities. The attacks were concentrated and carefully targeted to minimize casualties among the Libyan people with whom we have no quarrel.
Our evidence is direct; it is precise; it is irrefutable. We have solid evidence about other attacks Qadhafi has planned against the United States installations and diplomats and even American tourists.
We believe that this preemptive action against his terrorist installations will not only diminish Colonel Qadhafi’s capacity to export terror, it will provide him with incentives and reasons to alter his criminal behavior. . . .
We Americans are slow to anger. We always seek peaceful avenues before resorting to the use of force—and we did. We tried quiet diplomacy, public condemnation, economic sanctions, and demonstrations of military force. None succeeded. Despite our repeated warnings, Qadhafi continued his reckless policy of intimidation, his relentless pursuit of terror. He counted on America to be passive. He counted wrong.
I warned that there should be no place on Earth where terrorists can rest and train and practice their deadly skills. I meant it. I said that we would act with others, if possible, and alone if necessary to ensure that terrorists have no sanctuary anywhere. Tonight, we have.48
The global response to the April 1986 bombing raid was mixed. The American news media broadly supported the attack, the consensus being that it played well in Peoria. Conducted on a Monday evening during national news, the Reagan attack was the first prime-time bombing in the nation’s history. In the course of the raid, U.S. Air Force bombers attacked three targets near Tripoli: the airport, a port facility near Sidi Bilal, and the military barracks at Bab al-Aziziyyah, where Qaddafi was known to reside. Naval aircraft operating from aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean simultaneously attacked military facilities near Benghazi. While American military spokesmen spoke of pinpoint bombing, collateral damage included the French embassy, a chicken farm on the outskirts of Tripoli, and several other civilian areas. Estimates of casualties varied, but as many as one hundred Libyan civilians initially were thought to have been killed or wounded in the raid. Qaddafi escaped the raid largely unhurt but was badly shaken by the attack on his living quarters. His two-year-old adopted daughter was killed and two sons were reported injured by American bombs.49
Outside the United States, especially in the Arab, African, and Islamic worlds, the response was generally hostile. The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) denounced the raid as a blatant, unprovoked act of aggression, and to demonstrate support for the Libyan government, dispatched a delegation to Tripoli less than a week after the attack. OPEC member states condemned the raid but quickly rejected a Libyan demand for an immediate oil embargo against the United States. The more moderate Arab states like Egypt and Jordan found themselves trapped between traditional ties of Arab solidarity and considerable uneasiness over the policies of the Reagan administration.50
Many Arab leaders had apparently concluded that Washington must either take decisive action against Libya or leave Qaddafi alone. At the same time, they recognized that no Arab leader could endorse an attack on a fellow Arab state, especially an attack by a superpower, without undermining his own domestic political standing. For this reason, most Arab and Islamic states extended Libya varying degrees of rhetorical support but generally refused to take more practical measures in support of the Qaddafi regime. The United Arab Emirates, for example, canceled the scheduled visit of a trade delegation to Britain to protest British involvement in the raid, and an Afghan resistance leader canceled a visit to the United States to highlight his opposition to an armed attack on a fellow Islamic state. The governments of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, in a highly exposed political position because of their close association with the United States, roundly condemned the raid, although they also failed to take more stringent action. The general condemnation of the raid, inside and outside the Middle East, was hardly an endorsement of Libyan foreign policy. On the other hand, it did suggest that the Reagan administration had seriously underestimated the negative political fallout the raid would generate.51
The Reagan administration also misread the impact of the April raids on the Qaddafi regime. Eager to proclaim victory, Secretary of State Shultz suggested that the bombing raid caused Qaddafi to reorient Libyan foreign policy:
The public response in the United States and Europe supported the president’s actions. His standing in public opinion polls soared. That made an impact on congressional critics. More important, Qaddafi, after twitching feverishly with a flurry of vengeful responses, quieted down and retreated into the desert. The Europeans, more alert now to the dangers posed to them by Libya, alarmed at the use of force by the United States and anxious to show cooperation with a popular U.S. action, took action of their own. We had finally gotten their attention. They forced drastic personnel reductions in the Libyan people’s bureaus, and the activities of those remaining were restricted and watched. This action alone significantly curbed Qaddafi’s terrorist capacities.52
While there were significant shifts in the foreign and domestic policies of the Libyan government in the coming twelve months, and some of those changes were precipitated or accelerated by the April 1986 bombing raid, few of them supported the objectives articulated by the Reagan administration when it launched the attack. After a period of seclusion, Colonel Qaddafi returned to the world stage with the major tenets of his policies intact. His support for state-sponsored terrorism might now be more circumspect, but he remained adamantly opposed to the international status quo and determined to employ all of Libya’s resources to overthrow it.53
Qaddafi made his first major public appearance after the raid in Tripoli on the seventeenth anniversary of the September One Revolution. In his speech, which was said to be much more forceful than the previous year, he displayed a new militancy. Denouncing the United States and defaming Reagan, Qaddafi launched a purge of “American agents” and other opponents of the regime, challenging directly those elements in the Libyan military and elsewhere that the United States had intended to strengthen with the April 1986 raid.
Brothers, in 1969 the revolutionaries moved forward. They challenged in those hours five U.S. bases on Libyan territory and a British military base. They challenged the firmly established royal system which the United States was protecting with its five bases. We who are saying today to hell with America said the same thing at the same time 17 years ago, in 1969, while we were confronting five U.S. bases with the revolutionary will. . . . Today we say, o brother, to hell with America, to hell with colonialism, to hell with imperialism, to hell with Zionism, to hell with agents of colonialism, the agents of imperialism, the agents of Zionism. . . .
Reagan has to read history. He reads cheap hollywood scenarios and that is the problem of the world today—namely, a second rate actor becomes the president of the biggest power. . . .
He [Reagan] does not read history. He reads the scripts of trivial plays which all deal with the smuggling of a handful of dollars outside America. This is his education. But he will pay the price of this education. If America continues to obey Reagan the American people will pay the price of such stupidity and ignorance and of this disregard of convincing facts.
I want to say to him [Reagan] that if you continue your tyranny, insolence, madness, and foolishness against the international community and world peace, then I Mu’ammar al-Qadhdhafi, want to state that I can form an international army consisting of fighters against imperialism and against the United States of America personally—please stop chanting and let me finish what I want to say—I can form an army outside Libya and I can take with me thousands of fighters from among the Libyans. This army will spread out to all corners of the globe and destroy the American presence everywhere.54
Domestically, the raid rallied revolutionary elements behind Qaddafi and his regime. Seizing the opportunity, he strengthened the power and authority of the revolutionary committees, watchdog organizations first established in 1976–77 and composed of his most fervent supporters. Members of the revolutionary committees became much more active and outspoken in their efforts to silence voices of internal dissent. Qaddafi’s efforts in this regard were so successful that by 1987–88 he was describing the revolutionary committees as overzealous and power-hungry. Even though he later moved to reduce their power and authority, they still remained strongly committed to the existence and operation of the revolution.55
On the other hand, the relative impunity with which the raids were executed thoroughly demoralized and discredited the Libyan armed forces, the institution the Reagan administration had counted on to force change in Libya. This encouraged Qaddafi to proceed with plans to abolish the formal military hierarchy and to replace it with a vaguely-defined “people’s army.” Several senior army officers later “volunteered” to take rank reductions as a step toward the planned elimination of the conventional armed forces. The Libyan government also moved forward with plans to relocate army headquarters from Tripoli to a remote desert region, a decision largely designed to reduce coup attempts. This series of moves added to the growing power of the revolutionary committees and thus was understandably unpopular with the armed forces. In March 1987, several members of the Libyan armed forces commandeered a military aircraft in Chad and flew to Egypt where they requested political asylum.56
As some observers had predicted before the April 1986 bombing raid, the American crusade embarrassed exiled Libyan opposition groups, undermining their popularity and weakening their already limited capabilities. There were a number of such groups, none of which provided a real threat to the regime; however, they did provide concrete evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with Qaddafi’s revolution. Many of these small organizations, most of which were torn by internal rivalry and dissent, became increasingly concerned that they would be dismissed as nothing more than pawns of U.S. foreign policy. After the raid, one opposition group declared that non-Libyans were free to employ sanctions and boycotts to oppose Qaddafi, but the military option was for Libyans and Libyans alone.57
In the aftermath of the raid, Qaddafi also accelerated many of the more radical aspects of his domestic agenda. To accommodate lower oil revenues, salaries, research allowances, and welfare benefits were frozen or reduced. In addition, the regime pressured older white-collar employees without university degrees into blue-collar jobs to offset the expatriate workers sent home. An August 1986 government decree banned the hiring of university engineering graduates on the grounds that no more were needed, suggesting that they join the Libyan armed forces. The government also curtailed the teaching of foreign languages, especially English, and reportedly considered a reduction in the provision of elementary education in favor of home schooling. Finally, the regime abolished money as a form of legal tender, a concept first raised almost a decade earlier. The renewed prospect of a barter economy added to the general confusion and consternation prevailing in Libya.58
Finally, the American attack strained Soviet-Libyan relations that could already be described as testy. Due to policy differences and the mercurial nature of the Qaddafi regime, the Soviets had remained hesitant, even as relations with Tripoli expanded in the early 1980s, to move too close to Libya. As the American raid developed, Washington kept Moscow informed of its maneuvers, but the Soviets apparently made no effort to intervene on behalf of Libya. In the aftermath of the attack, Qaddafi again repeated his threat to join the Warsaw Pact, a proposal which had received no serious support from the Soviet Union from the time it was first voiced in October 1978. Moscow condemned the raid, canceling a scheduled meeting between Secretary of State Shultz and Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze, but it limited its practical response to a promise to help rebuild Libya’s defensive capability. When Qaddafi’s deputy, Abdel Salam Jalloud, visited the Soviet capital in May 1986, the Soviets proved reluctant to extend additional arms credits or to conclude a mutual defense treaty. Instead, they reportedly emphasized the ongoing confusion that existed in differentiating between Libyan support for revolution and terrorism. In short, the Soviet Union remained an aloof and reluctant ally.59
The Reagan administration, in turn, heightened its program of diplomatic, economic, and military pressure on the Libyan government. In early June 1986, Washington implemented a previously announced decision, ordering U.S. oil and oil-service companies to stop operations in Libya by the end of the month. These companies had been given a special exemption when President Reagan imposed the trade embargo on Libya in December 1985, following the attacks on the Rome and Vienna airports. The directive required the oil companies to terminate all royalty and tax payments to Libya, barred them from receiving payments from European customers buying Libyan oil, and called on them to cease participation in the management and operation of their Libyan oil concessions. At the time, an administration official was quoted as saying that “we recognize that crude oil flow is really Qadhafi’s jugular.” The new directive, on the other hand, did not require the companies to renounce their ownership of assets in Libya. Afraid a quick pullout would bestow a financial windfall on the Qaddafi regime, Washington gave the oil companies additional time to negotiate their withdrawal from Libya. The five American companies involved—Amerada Hess, Conoco, Marathon, Occidental, and W. R. Grace—estimated their assets in Libya to approximate as much as $2 billion, but hastened to add that it was impossible to estimate precisely the net book asset value or fair-market value. The decision to order U.S. companies to end operations in Libya was expected in Washington, erroneously as it turned out, to make it easier for the United States to seek European sanctions on Libya.60
The withdrawal of the American oil companies from Libya had serious implications for the future of the Libyan oil industry. In the short term, it probably affected exploration more than production, as numerous Libyans had gained some production experience working with the departed U.S. companies. Moreover, the Qaddafi regime recognized that U.S. companies retained claim to their concessions, a claim they might be able to exercise at a later date. Since the oil companies had a vested interest in the well-being of their concessions, they were willing to offer advice on production issues when requested. Initially, the Libyan government gave the oil companies suspended rights to their concessions for three years, and representatives of the oil companies and the Libyan government later held sporadic meetings in an attempt to resolve the complicated legal issues involved.61
At the same time, the Reagan administration continued to articulate a globalist viewpoint that saw the Soviet Union and its East European allies orchestrating state-sponsored terrorism around the world through surrogates like Libya. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger developed this theme in a January 1987 address to a conference on terrorism:
We see in state-sponsored terrorism significantly different levels of involvement, support, and accountability. These levels might be called, first, the policy level: second, the logistical level; and finally the operational level.
The Soviet Union supports terrorism at the policy level by actively encouraging and helping client states. The Soviets do not engage in terrorism directly. Rather, they provide political and military support from a distance. Thus, Moscow can rely on surrogates and clients to provide the operational arm of terrorism. . . .
At the second level of involvement in terrorism, the logistical level, we find Soviet allies, clients, and surrogates like Bulgaria, East Germany, and Cuba providing weapons, training, and material support to terrorism.
Finally, at the third level of involvement, the operational level, we find three states directly engaged in terrorism, in pursuit of their own national goals—Syria, Libya, and Iran.
Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi remains the most notorious proponent of terrorism. Our actions last spring [14 April 1986 U.S. bombing raid on Libya] had a clear effect on his terrorist activities. Indeed, throughout Europe there was a sharp drop in terrorist activity in the months following the strike. Qadhafi now understands that those who use terrorism must pay a heavy cost. . . .
Our policy was also reinforced by the leaders of the seven industrial nations attending the Tokyo summit. There, with the eyes of the world on them, they denounced Libya as a practitioner of terrorism and, in the strongest language, condemned the use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy.62
American policy toward Libya in the aftermath of the April 1986 bombing raid accentuated the very real differences separating the Reagan administration and its NATO allies on the subject of how best to deal with terrorism in general and Libya in particular. Great Britain was the only European country to support the raids, and the Thatcher government seemed most unlikely to support a repeat use of force. The remaining governments of Western Europe were generally critical of the use of force with most suggesting the bombing raid was illegal under international law and more likely to provoke terrorism than to prevent it.63
According to a little-known U.S. Department of Defense report only made public in February 2000, the Qaddafi regime responded almost immediately to the April 1986 raid, and its campaign of retaliation continued for up to four years. Reprisals included the execution of two kidnapped Britons and one American in Beirut, an attack on a U.S. embassy employee in the Sudan, and a Libyan missile attack in the direction of a U.S. installation on the Italian island of Lampedusa. These actions, and possibly others, contradicted the popular myth propagated by the Reagan administration that the raid suppressed the Qaddafi regime.64
Sensing the mood of its allies, Washington delayed efforts to gain European support to tighten sanctions on Libya. It was only in September 1986 that the American envoy, Vernon Walters, visited a number of European capitals where he reiterated the concern of the Reagan administration for Libyan terrorism and pressed for a comprehensive program of diplomatic and economic sanctions. His message was greeted with widespread skepticism and failed to produce the coordinated sanctions package the United States advocated.65
Throughout Europe there was a widespread feeling that the Reagan administration, in its closing years, continued to overestimate the Libyan threat and then overreact to it. In support of this assessment, Europeans continued to feel that U.S. policy was addressing the symptoms of the disease of terrorism as opposed to the cause, which they believed to be the Palestinian issue. European governments also expressed concern that American policy could increase the Soviet threat to NATO by leading to a Soviet naval base at Tobruk or elsewhere on the Libyan coast. At the same time, the Soviet Union’s growing influence among members of the Gulf Cooperation Council strengthened related concerns over a possible increase in Soviet influence throughout the region. Finally, commercial considerations weighed heavily on many European governments with up to 10,000 Europeans living and working in Libya at the time, and billions of dollars in Libyan arrears still owed European companies.66
From this perspective, the foreign policy setbacks suffered by the Reagan administration in the remaining months of his second term simply confirmed in many European capitals the wisdom of remaining one step removed from Washington. An ill-conceived disinformation campaign against Libya in the fall of 1986 diverted attention from Libya’s own actions and exposed a split in administration policy toward Libya. The disinformation campaign, outlined in a secret White House memo dated 14 August, was intended to make Qaddafi think that opposition to him was increasing and that the United States was again about to use military force against him. Calling for a series of coordinated events involving covert, diplomatic, and military actions, the scheme was initially successful as the news media in and out of the United States reported as fact much of the false information generated by the plan. A series of articles appeared around the world alleging renewed Libyan backing for terrorism, Qaddafi’s imminent downfall, and a looming, new U.S.-Libya confrontation.67 When this strategy of deceit was eventually discovered, it prompted a storm of protest from American journalists. President Reagan refused to characterize the plan as a disinformation campaign but admitted that he had approved in August a program designed to make Qaddafi “go to bed every night wondering what we might do” to deter terrorism. The fallout from the disinformation campaign led to the resignation of Bernard Kalb, the State Department spokesperson and a highly respected journalist in his own right, and greatly undermined the credibility of administration pronouncements on Libya.68
The Iran-Contra fiasco was even more damaging, as it left the anti-terrorist policy of the Reagan administration in total disarray. The sale of arms to the Khomeini government in Iran, one of the three states (Libya and Syria being the other two) that Washington had most frequently associated with terrorism, contradicted its official policy toward the Iran-Iraq war. Reagan biographer Lou Cannon best captured the bifurcated character of American foreign policy at the time: “Throughout the secret dealings with Iran and the flow of U.S. missiles and military spare parts to the Iranian revolutionary government, Ronald Reagan masqueraded as a resolute foe of terrorism.”69 To many observers, the Reagan administration, to the degree it arranged bilateral deals with radical regimes, appeared to be guilty of that ambiguity toward state-sponsored terrorism of which it had so often criticized its European allies. When the Italian government pressed the issue at the end of 1986, it suggested that the United States earlier had also appeared to be pursuing a dual policy of secret contacts with Libya, citing the Wilson visit to Tripoli, while at the same time advocating isolation of the Qaddafi regime.70
The April 1986 bombing raid, designed by the United States to promote the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime, had the opposite effect as it actually strengthened his hold on power. While the attack did little to rally the masses around Qaddafi, it invigorated a radical minority, and at the same time, discredited and demoralized regime opponents in and outside Libya. Qaddafi seized the moment to consolidate his domestic position even as he continued to oppose the international status quo. When King Hassan of Morocco on 29 August repudiated the two-year union, Qaddafi refused to accept the decision, arguing the treaty was still in force because it had been ratified by both peoples. He then traveled to Zimbabwe in September for the Non-Aligned Movement conference where he called for retaliatory measures against the United States. When the conference refused to adopt substantive measures, he accused some of its 101 members of being “spies, puppets, and traitors” linked to the United States and Israel, termed it a “funny movement,” and threatened to quit the organization. While Qaddafi did not resign from the NAM, his showmanship did underscore his increasing marginality in much of the world.71
Largely unsuccessful in redirecting Libyan foreign policy, the policy of the Reagan administration focused attention on a major irony in the total American-Libyan relationship. In part because of his esteem for American power and prestige, Qaddafi often betrayed a need for U.S. recognition of his importance. In this sense, the policies of the Reagan administration probably encouraged as much as discouraged the Libyan policies it meant to check, because the foreign policy of the former helped generate the international attention so desperately craved by the Libyan leader.72 John Orman, author of a penetrating analysis of what he termed the “macho” presidential style of Ronald Reagan, had this to say about Reagan’s impact on Qaddafi:
Since 1981 Reagan had elevated an obscure Arab leader to celebrity status in the world of superterrorists. Our national media provided Qaddafi with a forum and with the recognition he so desired. Reagan’s rhetoric matched Qaddafi’s word for word, slur for slur. Suddenly the Arab leader gained Hitlerian status in the United States as the “maddest” of the “mad men.” Qaddafi called Reagan’s hand with the Gulf of Sidra “Line of Death” challenge and Reagan responded with an easy military “victory.” Qaddafi called for a new campaign against Americans and Reagan responded with retaliation for the Berlin disco killing of an American soldier. His response was a bombing raid on Libya. All of this was intended to be a victory for the macho style of the presidency. However, innocent citizens from both sides have died while Reagan and Qaddafi play out their games.73
At the beginning of 1988, the final year of the Reagan presidency, the administration announced its intent to maintain economic sanctions against Libya. In so doing, Reagan stated that Libya continued “to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”74 Two months later the State Department issued a statement in which it argued that the U.S. bombing of Libya, coupled with defeats in Chad and domestic problems, had combined to weaken Qaddafi, but he had “not abandoned his radical and aggressive policies or his support of terrorism and aggression.” After citing evidence of recent Libyan support for terrorism, the State Department report continued:
The United States believes the appropriate response to Qadhafi’s policies remains one of isolating Libya and minimizing Libya’s presence abroad to demonstrate to Qadhafi the cost of his objectionable policies and to limit his capacity to take harmful actions. The administration recently renewed its wide-ranging economic sanctions against Libya.
Improved relations between the United States and Libya will not be possible as long as Qadahafi continues to support terrorism. What we seek is concrete evidence of a durable change in Libyan policies, not mere words.75
In a front-page article in the 24 December 1987 edition of the New York Times, the Reagan administration charged publicly that Libya was building a factory near Rabta, approximately forty miles southwest of Tripoli, which U.S. officials suspected would be used to produce chemical weapons. In the three years preceding the newspaper article, little attention was paid to chemical weapons; however, the Rabta facility was identified by U.S. intelligence sources as early as 1985 and was subject to considerable scrutiny after that time. The author of the newspaper article, Michael R. Gordon, appeared to have had access to senior administration officials, as he discussed Libyan activities with considerable accuracy and detail. Gordon mentioned reports that Libya had used poison gas in its war with Chad and that the Qaddafi regime enjoyed a trade relationship in chemical arms with Iran. Such developments, if true, pointed to a fresh case of chemical weapons proliferation, a development the Reagan administration strongly opposed. In addition, the construction of a factory capable of producing chemical weapons threatened to destabilize the region.76
Qaddafi responded promptly to the charge, denying that the plant under construction at Rabta was intended for the purpose of manufacturing chemical weapons. At the same time, the Jamahiriya News Agency of Libya (JANA), the government news agency, condemned the U.S. embargo, especially what it described as the ban on the sale of medical supplies and medicines to Libya. This charge by Libyan authorities constituted a deliberate distortion of U.S. policy as medical supplies and medicine were clearly included in one exclusion in the administration’s embargo. The false charge of the Qaddafi regime established a rationale for the construction of the Rabta facility in which Tripoli argued that the U.S. embargo left it with no choice but to build a factory to produce medicines and pharmaceuticals.77
The Reagan administration expanded its charges in September 1988 when it announced that Libya appeared to be nearing full-scale production of chemical weapons. CIA director William H. Webster claimed the following month that the facility being constructed in Libya was the largest chemical weapons plant the CIA was aware of anywhere in the world. By the end of the year, U.S. officials had reportedly ascertained that Libya was planning to construct a large complex at Rabta to manufacture chemical weapons and associated products. Public speculation then emerged that Libya had received support for the Rabta project from up to a dozen European firms together with some Japanese companies. At this point, President Reagan increased the pressure on the Libyan government when he stated in a television interview that his administration was considering some form of military attack on the alleged chemical weapons complex. Given the April 1986 attacks on Benghazi and Tripoli, a threat by the American president to attack Rabta appeared highly credible and was reportedly taken very seriously by Qaddafi. President-elect George Bush immediately supported the administration’s position on a possible military attack.78
The Qaddafi regime reacted vigorously to the growing U.S. pressure in a variety of domestic and international venues, including bilateral diplomatic contacts, international forums, and a steady stream of press releases. Throughout the period, the Libyan government consistently maintained that the technical complex under construction at Rabta was nothing more than a pharmaceutical factory designed to manufacture medicine. Arguing that their interest in chemical industries was legitimate, the Libyans accused Washington of making false charges and challenged the United States to destroy its own stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Qaddafi later responded through Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti to President Reagan’s threat of a possible military response with an offer to allow a one-time international inspection of the Rabta plant. The Reagan administration immediately rejected this offer on the grounds that a one-time inspection could not be conclusive because a chemical warfare plant could be easily and quickly modified to appear as a legitimate industrial chemical plant. A subsequent visit to the site in early January 1989 by three busloads of journalists proved inconclusive. Libyan authorities allowed the journalists to view the facility only from a distance of approximately two thousand feet in gathering darkness.79
As the United States intensified its public accusations that Tripoli was constructing a chemical weapons factory, it quietly exerted diplomatic pressure on the governments of the companies thought to be involved in the construction of the Rabta complex. Possible links to German firms, in particular, surfaced over a prolonged period; nevertheless, until early 1989 the German government steadfastly maintained that it had no knowledge of any prosecutable offenses. It then issued a report that acknowledged the involvement of several German companies, especially Imhausen-Chemie, in the Rabta project. Washington welcomed the subsequent decision of the German government to tighten export regulations and to increase penalties for violations.80
As Libya faced off with the United States over the Rabta issue, Qaddafi continued his pursuit of radical internal and external policies. In September 1987, Chad and Libya, responding to an OAU appeal, agreed to a cease-fire. Qaddafi then declared an end to the war with Chad after claiming military victories at Matan al-Sarra and in the Aouzou strip. Chad and Libya submitted their dispute to OAU mediation later in the month, and one year later, announced plans to restore diplomatic ties.81 On more than one occasion in 1987, Qaddafi also expressed interest in an Arab atomic bomb. He argued that possession of a nuclear bomb would be a legitimate act of self-defense since Israel had reportedly developed its own nuclear capability.82 Qaddafi denounced the Muslim Brotherhood in January 1988, describing it as the worst of God’s enemies and accusing it of destroying the Arab nation. In August 1988 Libya announced plans to abolish both the regular army and the police and to replace them with an armed people whose service would be voluntary. Two months later, Qaddafi outlined plans to restructure the armed forces into three separate branches, the “Jamahiriya Guards” consisting of regular army units, conscript troops with a compulsory service of two years, and part-time recruits. Continuing attempts at devolution, Qaddafi later called for the dissolution of the Jamahiriya News Agency, the security service, the national sports organization, and several other state bodies.83
There was a sudden resurgence of terrorist activity against Americans and other Western targets beginning in mid-1988. Separate attacks in April involved four U.S. Information Agency buildings in three Latin American countries plus a bomb attack on a USO club in Italy in which an American woman and four others were killed. Terrorists struck again in May when a bomb exploded at the Citibank office in New Delhi. While the Japanese Red Army appeared involved in several of these incidents, the Reagan administration suggested Libyan involvement operating behind a cover of Japanese and Palestinian groups. In July the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian Airbus, killing 290 passengers; and in October German authorities arrested sixteen Palestinians after finding a bomb similar to those used in airplane attacks. On 21 December Pan American Airways Flight 103, on a flight from London to New York, exploded over the village of Lockerbie in Scotland, killing all 259 passengers as well as 11 persons on the ground.84
The Reagan administration ended its second term with its Libya policy intact. On 4January 1989, less than three weeks before the inauguration of George Bush, U.S. fighter jets downed two more Libyan aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea. The circumstances surrounding the action were not dissimilar to the downing of two Libyan jets in 1981. Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci described the event in the following terms:
This morning at about 5 a.m. Eastern Standard Time or 12 a.m. local time in the Mediterranean, two Libyan MiG-23 aircraft were shot down in self-defense by American F-14s with air-to-air missiles. . . .
At the time of the incident, both the ship and its aircraft were conducting training operations in international waters. The two F-14s were providing combat air patrol approximately 50 miles south of the [aircraft carrier U.S.S. John F.] Kennedy, which is some 70 miles north of the northeast Libyan coast. . . . The MiG aircraft were detected shortly after they left al-Bumbah. . . . The F-14 pilots maneuvered to avoid the closing aircraft. . . . The Libyan aircraft continued to close in a hostile manner. . . . At about 14 miles, the U.S. section leader decided his aircraft were in jeopardy, and they could wait no longer. . . .
The 6th Fleet ship and aircraft were operating in international waters and international airspace at the time of the incident and posed no threat to Libya. These routine operations are of the same type that have been conducted in the same area many times in the past. The 6th Fleet operations have no connection whatsoever with Libya’s newly constructed chemical facility. These operations, which were conducted over 600 miles northeast of the plant, had nothing to do whatsoever with that plant. We now consider this matter closed.85
Whereas the Reagan administration considered the matter closed, the Libyan government branded the U.S. action a “premeditated act” and an example of “American terrorism.” Qaddafi was quoted as saying, “We, as well as the fish, are awaiting them.” Libya claimed the two MiGs were unarmed and pressed the UN Security Council to condemn the American attack. In response, a Pentagon spokesperson, after brandishing photos showing the Libyan fighters were armed, labeled the Libyan ambassador to the United Nations a “liar.” As the war of words escalated, the Libyan workers at the Rabta facility were reported by the Libyan government to be ready to die in an anticipated American military strike. The UN Security Council, in the end, did not condemn the attack, and the United States did not attack the chemical factory at Rabta. America’s allies in Western Europe reportedly agreed with U.S. charges that Libya was building a chemical weapons facility but continued to display uneasiness with the policies of the Reagan administration. About this time, the West German government acknowledged for the first time that investigations had uncovered “indications” that West German companies had made unauthorized exports to Libya. As attention focused on West German involvement in the construction of the Rabta complex, the U.S. downing of the two Libyan MiGs was forgotten.86
One of the last official acts of the Reagan administration, concluded the day before the inauguration of George Bush, was to modify the U.S. sanctions against Libya in an effort to eliminate the financial windfall the Libyan government had been receiving under the 1986 standstill agreements:
The President has authorized the Department of the Treasury to modify the special licenses of American oil companies operating in Libya.
In 1986 when the United States imposed broad trade sanctions against Libya, the Department of the Treasury authorized American oil companies operating in Libya to negotiate standstill agreements with the Libyan Government. Those agreements provided for a suspension of company operations in Libya to protect the companies from contractual obligations to work their concessions in Libya. The 1986 standstill agreements expire June 30, 1989.
The President’s decision has been taken to protect U.S. interests. It will eliminate the significant financial windfall which Libya has been receiving under the 1986 standstill agreements by marketing the U.S. oil companies’ equity shares of oil liftings. . . . The effect of the decision will be to permit the U.S. oil companies, subject to the restrictions on trade and travel which remain in effect, to resume their operations in Libya, transfer operations to foreign subsidiaries, or sell their assets.
The United States trade embargo against Libya and the freeze on Libyan assets in the United States, which were renewed January 7, 1989, for 1 year, remain in effect, as do the bans on travel-related transactions and the use of U.S. passports for travel to Libya.
This decision does not represent a change in the attitude of the U.S. Government toward Libya. We remain deeply concerned about Qadhafi’s continued support for terrorism and subversion as well as Libyan efforts to develop a chemical weapons capability.87
The confrontation between Libya and the United States, given the globalist viewpoint of the Reagan administration, came as no surprise. As long as Qaddafi confined his radical theories and policies to Libya, he remained relatively safe, isolated from outside interference. Once he projected himself into the international arena with policies that threatened the status quo, the rules of the game changed quickly and dramatically. In short order, the Libyan government found itself in direct conflict with a superpower unwilling to allow a minor actor to challenge the global power system.
The Reagan administration confronted Libya around the world from Central America to sub-Saharan Africa and from Northern Ireland to the Philippines. In so doing, the objective was not necessarily the removal of Qaddafi, although evidence suggests he was targeted in the April 1986 raid. Rather, Washington sought to isolate his regime, benchmarking it as an example of the kind of international behavior the United States found unacceptable. For example, Washington generally opposed the policy of a two-hundred-mile territorial sea that was being articulated by a number of countries around the world, but it was in Libya where it chose to challenge the policy directly and aggressively with a response that included military force. Evidence of Libyan involvement in terrorist incidents was often circumstantial, at best, but unable to find the real culprits, the United States chose to punish the Qaddafi regime. With patriotism in full flower in the White House, Qaddafi became a symbolic surrogate for more dangerous radicals inside and outside the Middle East who were beyond the reach of U.S. power. Like the Mayaguez a decade earlier and Tripoli during the Jefferson administration, Libya proved an enticing target, soft and relatively safe, on which to demonstrate American resolve.
The bombing raid on Benghazi and Tripoli, a massive operation in which two American pilots and scores of Libyan civilians died, clearly represented a major change in U.S. policy. The political message encompassed in the raid was clear, and the attack surely got Qaddafi’s attention. It also put others in the Third World on notice that it was not wise to target the United States regardless of their antipathy toward the West. The actual military damage, on the other hand, was marginal, consisting largely of a few parked Libyan aircraft. Despite the talk of pinpoint bombing, the April 1986 attack proved again how the best laid plans and the most sophisticated technology can go awry in combat.
At the same time, the aggressive policies of the Reagan administration threatened severe consequences for American policy toward Europe, the Third World, and the Soviet Union. European governments were uncomfortable with the use of force on the grounds that it was unproductive and unwarranted. They also expressed concern that further use of force might strengthen the Soviet-Libyan partnership or force Moscow into a similar strong reaction to maintain its own credibility in the Arab world. While many Arab and Third World governments had little sympathy for Qaddafi, they found it impossible to support a superpower bullying one of their own.
The policy of the Reagan administration toward the Qaddafi regime in the end produced, at best, mixed results. It succeeded in making Libya a symbol of unacceptable international behavior, but it failed to change the direction or emphasis of Libyan foreign policy. The central components of Libyan foreign policy after 1988 were not radically different from those before 1981 although the embargo championed by Washington did impose real limits on Tripoli’s freedom action on the world stage. Bringing the full impact of American power and influence on Libya also did not stop terrorism which threw into question the actual role of the Qaddafi regime in many terrorist acts. Finally, where the Reagan administration aimed to foster credibility with moderate Arab states and restore respect for America as a reliable friend and ally, it found it extremely difficult to attack Qaddafi in a way that played as well in Amman, Cairo, or Riyadh as it played in Peoria.