Qaddafi's Capitulation

I can’t believe that the weasels collective are trying to claim that sanctions and "peaceful processes" are the cause of Qaddafi’s decision to end his WMD programs.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I really didn’t see this one coming.  It’s just so blatantly false on its face; I guess you really have to be as irrational and desperate as France and Russia to pretend that this isn’t the result of US-led action against Iraq.  Argh.  I don’t feel like writing about this, and fortunately Den Beste already has summarized it quite succinctly, so I’ll just quote:

The idea that this was somehow a triumph of diplomacy and soft power pressure (e.g. sanctions), as is variously claimed by China, Russia, France, and Solana at the EU doesn’t stand up to the light of day.  Why was it the British (and indirectly the Americans) that Libya contacted, not China or Russia or France or the EU or the UN?  Why did Qaddafi begin his diplomacy last March, and not earlier or later?  And why the final agreement now, rather than last August or next August?
...
Why did he call the British, rather than the French or the Russians or the EU or the UN? ... What has developed over the last couple years is that Blair and Bush are doing a superb good-cop/bad-cop act.  Blair is the good cop, the "reasonable" one.  Unlike Australian PM John Howard, Blair has leftist/internationalist credentials, and has positioned himself to be the only world leader with such credentials who has significant influence with Bush and who has some ability to restrain or deflect Bush.  Bush is the bad cop, the cowboy, the moron, the devout Christian, the one with blood in his eye, who also happens to be commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world and appears very willing and perhaps even eager to use it against those he dislikes... That characterization of Bush is facile and wrong, of course; but he has that reputation in many places and it has actually served us well.

It’s absurd to suggest that it’s just coincidence that Qaddafi only started to negotiate when we attacked Iraq, and just coincidence that he only finally capitulated right after we nabbed Saddam.