Diplomatic relations with the military dictatorship of Libya, long in the deep freeze, have been thawed as per a speech given today by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Michael Rubin, the democratist who tells you always how he would have done it, has written to National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez, who herself describes her mood following the news as "depressed," that "from the Middle East perspective" — which is surely to say, from his — President Bush is a big fibber on democracy.
Please. Calm down.
The last two lines of a recent post of Richard Fernandez's paraphrased Sun Tzu in reference to "a way in which one's adversary can accede to [one's] demands without losing face or suffering undue public humiliation." Fernandez was writing about Egypt, but I immediately thought of Libya. Moammar Gadhafi may be geopolitically benign but he is still a crackpot megalomaniac; it was good work and good fortune that his WMD exposé occurred shortly after the end of Ba'athist Iraq. The mad colonel will likely never return to his Reagan-era opprobrium yet short of his death or military deposition and the prevented accession of his son, democratist reform will not come to Libya at the expense of his autarchy.
Gadhafi is the only dictator who blinked in 2003. That has got to mean something in those circles. He probably can't be pushed any further, and without reciprocity like diplomatic reconciliation there is a risk of recidivism that will increase with time. Topple Gadhafi? Not before Bashar Assad, or Kim Jong Il, or the Khomeinist mullahs. So force is out. The president rightly knows that while driven by principle he is judged by practice, and that engaging Libyans themselves will be remembered; standing still for the sake of Michael Rubin's immaculate ideal never heard of again.