Biden handed off the phone to an aide and bounded up the stairs of the Gulfstream 5. Soon enough the Delaware Democrat would be able to take his own measure of the Libyan leader. Ever since Libya announced late last year that it would abandon its weapons of mass destruction program, the culmination of months of secret diplomacy, Congressional delegations have been streaming into Libya. It’s become the hot “co-del,” a chance for members of Congress to burnish their foreign policy credentials, while sipping sweet tea with one of the Arab world’s most flamboyant potentates.
But what was oddly dissonant for me, as I accompanied Biden on his 40-hour jaunt to Libya last week, was how a sworn enemy–the “Mad Dog” of the Middle East in Ronald Reagan’s words, could become a trustworthy ally practically overnight. Why all of a sudden, was Kaddafi being hailed by American politicians, particularly those on the right, as an enlightened visionary, a founding father of Arab reform and liberalism? It was true that Kaddafi had made a series of striking decisions–abruptly giving up his WMD, renouncing terrorism, and opening up Libya’s economy. But it is also true that for almost three decades he was a fervent supporter of international terrorism, personally ordering some bloody acts of terror over the years. (Kaddafi recently acknowledged Libya’s role in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.) And to this day, Libya remains an autocratic state, where power flows from the “leader of the Great Al-Fateh Revolution,” as Kaddafi is still known. Our whirlwind trip provided glimpses of dramatic change in Libya. But it also offered a cautionary tale about how to move from enmity to amity in a Middle East going through big changes.
Biden disdains the clubby elitism of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. But the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is no naif. Within minutes of takeoff, his staff began fine-tuning the speech the senator would give the following evening to Kaddafi’s hand-picked People’s Congress. He was not about to deliver a paean to the Libyan strongman. For every word of encouragement, there would have to be an equal measure of caution. “This is a moment of great possibility for Libya and for the relationship between our countries,” the speech went. “But many of us remain skeptical.” Biden insisted on acknowledging by name some of the 270 victims of Pan Am 103. When he gave the speech in the cavernous hall , the passage was one of several that elicited grumbling and nods of disapproval.
Better received was Weldon’s speech to the Libyan People’s Congress the night before, which offered more carrot than stick. A representative passage: “Your leader made a profound statement … when he told us that ‘Americans do not know Libya or its people … on our first trip you gave me a copy of the Green Book, which I have already read. We are here today to begin to understand your Jamahirya. We are ready to learn–to become sensitive to your society so that we can go back and tell your story.” This “take me to your leader” rhetoric is jarring. Weldon comes uncomfortably close to embracing some of the vague intellectual underpinnings of Kaddafi’s weird ideology. Jamahiriya translates roughly as “state of the masses,” and is the “leader’s” concept of direct democracy–local people’s committees that are ultimately controlled by Kaddafi. In the Great Jamahirya, as Libya is officially known, Western-style parliaments are forbidden because they undermine democracy. Legislative bodies in which candidates can win with a 51 percent majority lead to dictatorships because the 49 percent of voters whose candidate loses are not represented, goes the argument. Kaddafi’s political and social philosophy is enshrined in a slim volume known as the Green Book. His guiding principles are an odd blend of Pan-Arab socialism, Islamic law and desert folk wisdom. A typical insight: “It is an undisputed fact that both man and woman are human beings.” The Green Book goes on, “Woman is a female and man is a male. According to a gynecologist, woman menstruates or suffers feebleness every month, while man being male does not menstruate and he is not subject to the monthly period which is a bleeding.”
Weldon acknowledges Kaddafi’s quirkiness, attributing it to three decades of isolation. At the same time he seems genuinely moved by the dramatic turnabout. After returning from Libya, Weldon, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee who’s worked tirelessly on WMD issues, told me Kaddafi’s speech ranked among the three most profound political events of his life. The other two: the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and Boris Yeltsin’s dramatic standing on a tank in front of the Russian parliament to help thwart a coup attempt. Hyperbole, perhaps. (Weldon did say that he’d echoed Reagan’s ‘Trust, but verify’ admonition in his private meeting with Kaddafi.) But the way the congressman looks at it, an Arab ruler who is willing to renounce terrorism and unilaterally give up his weapons of mass destruction is nothing to sneer at. Still, some Bush administration officials say it’s a little early to be swooning over Kaddafi. “We’re trying to do this carefully, step-by step,” says one senior official. “We want to manage expectations.”
When we landed at the airport in Sirte, a dreary coastal town, about 300 miles east of Tripoli, Weldon was waiting for us. He was eager to brief Biden on what he had seen and learned. And when they got the chance, Libyan government apparatchiks sidled up to Biden, alternately offering up platitudes about the “leader’s” bold actions and asking if the Senator could help them obtain visas to the United States. Soon we were zooming down the coastal plain toward our hotel. Along the two-lane highway there were little more than camels languidly grazing on the meager vegetation, giant billboards exalting Kaddafi, and pieces of giant cement pipe, part of the Great Man-Made River, a projected 2,500-mile pipeline from the desert to the coast. When we got to the hotel, a sprawling campus inside a lightly-guarded compound, we planned to get some rest after the nine-hour, sleepless flight. As soon as I nodded off, there was a loud knock on the door. The leader was ready to see us. We sped off in a five-car convoy to Kaddafi’s residence in Sirte, his ancestral homeland. There we waited for about 15 minutes, until Kaddafi swept into the room with characteristic flair. Swathed in Bedouin robes, jaw jutting out for effect, he worked the crowd like a man who was not worried about his re-election. A factotum introduced me as “Mr. Newsweek.” Kaddafi squeezed my hand and grunted.
Biden and Kaddafi talked for about an hour, first with staff and then with only a translator. As Biden described it, Kaddafi was subdued at first, barely audible. But after a while, he engaged more and his intense, brown eyes brightened. Kaddafi asked about John Kerry, who had just trounced his opponents in the Super Tuesday Democratic presidential primaries. The Libyan obliquely asked whether he should reach out to the presumptive Democratic nominee. Then he pointed out that Kerry had voted in the past to toughen sanctions against Libya. All politics are local. For his part, Biden continued to press Kaddafi on Democratic reform, albeit in a folksy, non-threatening manner. “If this is a democracy,” he asked his host, “can the people get rid of you?” Kaddafi said “No,” adding that he had a special claim to his position. “I started the revolution.” Biden pointed out that George Washington had started the American Revolution, but that he was “kicked out” after eight years in office, adding with a twinkle in his eye that he wouldn’t mind having the Libyan leader’s “job security.” Kaddafi said he enjoyed the meeting and he was happy to have the opportunity to talk to Americans again. (Washington withdrew its ambassador from Tripoli in 1972; U.S. diplomatic staff left the country after a mob set fire to the embassy in 1979.) Americans, he said “are isolated and need to be educated.”
After their meeting, Mr. Newsweek was ushered in along with Mr. Washington Post (Rome-based Daniel Williams) for a brief interview with the leader. When asked whether in his heart he believed Libya was responsible for the downing of Pan Am 103, Kaddafi seemed slightly exasperated with the question: “What’s buried is buried and we don’t want to dig it out,” he said. “It has a bad reputation. We don’t want to dig it out when somebody is buried,” he added, using an unfortunate turn of phrase for the context. Asked whether he still subscribed to the tenets of his Green Book, there was no hesitation. “I would say the Green Book is the guide for the emancipation of the whole of humanity, not just Libya.”
That evening, Biden delivered his address to the People’s Congress, in a gleaming new marble-clad hall in Sirte. Biden praised the Libyans for the reforms they have already undertaken. But he prodded them to “aim higher.” He hit a wrong note when he mentioned Washington’s friendship with Israel. And he probably wounded the pride of a few in the chamber when he pointed out that the combined gross domestic product of Spain, the engine of Arab civilization 1000 years ago, was larger than the GDP of all Arab countries combined. At the end of the speech, delegates stood up and rebutted some of Biden’s points. (One source told me that the responses had been personally orchestrated by Kaddafi.) One man, who identified himself as a philosopher, derided American democracy as controlled by the finance lobby and the Jewish lobby." But another delegate, who said he was from the committee for the “Friendship of People’s” pleaded for all to “let bygones be bygones,” a charitable sentiment in the spirit of this new chapter in Libyan-U.S. Relations.
At the airport the next morning, as we prepared to board our plane for the flight home, an urgent call came from the Libyan foreign ministry. We were asked not to leave until a government representative could come and give Biden an official farewell. Within minutes, a slightly frazzled bureaucrat appeared and a goodbye ceremony was hastily arranged. The Libyan shook Biden’s hand, flashed a smile for the cameras and handed Senator Joseph, as he had become known, a gift. As soon as it was over, we boarded the sleek executive jet and within minutes were climbing up over the Mediterranean headed back home. At cruising altitude, Biden opened his gift. It was a book entitled: “Reagan the Terrorist the Children Killer” [sic.] Inside were grisly pictures of the victims of the 1986 bombing of one of Kaddafi’s official residences. (The attack was in retaliation for the bombing of a Berlin disco in which two American soldiers died.) Just to be sure the American politician got the message, included in the package was a thick stack of 5-by-8 inch glossies of bloodied, dead victims. Biden learned an old Arab expression on his trip to Libya, one that other American dignitaries might want to keep in mind as we forge our new relationship with Col. Kaddafi. “Trust in Allah, but tie your camel.”
