Walking softly with the big stick

According to the NYT,

Libya's surprise declaration giving up its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons was the culmination of a week of intense negotiations that followed months of secret diplomacy, including a series of late-night meetings in Tripoli between the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and experts from the C.I.A., and clandestine visits to at least 10 sites in Libya by British and American weapons experts, officials in London and Washington said Saturday.

One assumes that this isn't quite yet a done deal, but it looks pretty promising.  And it will bring to three the number of official state sponsors of terrorism that Dubya & Co. have transformed since 9/11.  What's remarkable about the Libyan episode —

• It's been done, again, with our staunch allies the Brits, God bless 'em.

• It's been done with absolute leak-free secrecy — impossible to imagine in many prior administrations of both parties.

• It's been done without the meddling hypocrisy of the United Nations.

• Finally, it's been done deftly and without the use of force — something that was only possible because Dubya & Co. have both the demonstrated capacity and will to use force.  Qaddafi may be crazy, or maybe he isn't; but he isn't stupid, and about now he's got to be having vivid nightmares about being on worldwide television with an American military doctor probing his mouth with a tongue depressor and a flashlight.

This is a really promising trend.

--------------

Update (Sun Dec 21 @ 12:45am):   Sunday's WaPo story on this topic makes it clear that the timing of Libya's initiation of negotiations coincided almost exactly with the beginning of the Iraq War:

British officials are usually tight-lipped about their work behind closed doors. But their pride in this achievement was apparent in their willingness to disclose key details of the nine-month effort that resulted in the deal, which was announced in a carefully choreographed sequence of statements Friday evening by Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam in Tripoli, Prime Minister Tony Blair in London and President Bush in Washington.

According to the British account, [Libyan intelligence chief Musa] Kusa, who is one of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi's most trusted aides, approached MI6 officials in March to say his government wanted to initiate talks with Britain and the United States about its weapons of mass destruction program....

The Libyans' explanation of their motivation doesn't mention their knowledge of Saddam's fate, but gives another very sound reason for their actions:

Shalqam told al-Jazeera television that Libya had acted because its weapons program did not benefit its people. "We want to have ties with America and Britain because this is in the interest of our people," he said.

Bingo!  It's good to be friends with the world's only superpower and its chums.  It's bad not to.