You Mean, It Wasn't Clinton's Doing?

Democrats have been claiming all along that Bill Clinton deserves the credit for Libya dictator Muammar Qaddafi's sudden reversal on the issue of nuclear and chemical weapons.

No way Jose. Muammar was scared of George W. Bush.

"It was not patient diplomacy, although that helped. Nor was it a U.S. or British desire to rehabilitate Qaddafi. Instead, it was a combination of implied threats and U.S. and British actions on the high seas and in Iraq that convinced Qaddafi he had not a moment to lose before his government became the next Axis of Evil regime in U.S. gun sights. The story of how the Bush administration achieved a bloodless victory in Libya demonstrates how force and the credible threat of force are needed for the tools of intelligence and diplomacy to work.

"Until Sept. 11, Qaddafi was hoping he could carry on with a clandestine nuclear-weapons program and get away with it," a Western diplomat in Tripoli tells Insight. But when he saw the response of the Bush administration in Afghanistan, "he realized he couldn't keep going as before."