U.S. and Libya Complete Long Diplomatic Process
Gene Cretz (US State Dept. photo)
The U.S. Senate’s approval of Gene Cretz as the new ambassador to Libya, late Thursday, November 20, marks the first time in 36 years that the United States will have an ambassador in Libya, concluding the long road to diplomat relations between the two countries. However, throughout the Arab world, there are mixed and cautious feelings about the new relationship.
Hisham Youssef, the head of the Cabinet of Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa stated, “We welcome advancing relations between Libya and the United States and on the basis of agreements that they have had in the last several months and advancing the relations is something that we look at in a very positive and constructive way.” However, he is still skeptical due to the past tense relations between the outgoing Bush Administration and the Arab world as a whole, but added that people are looking forward to the new policies that will be adopted by the Obama administration.
Some critics in the Arab world, like political analyst for Beirut’s Daily Star newspaper, Rami Khouri, believe that the Bush administration is improving relations with Libya for the wrong reasons. He says, “I think this deal that the Libyans and the Americans and the West made, strikes me as incomplete because they gave up their nuclear industry in return for having normal relations . . . Libya is still an autocratic place which is very tightly run and the West is very happy to have relations with it and make money from oil and contracts and stuff like that . . . I’m a bit critical of how the West would completely ignore the internal conditions and the nature of the regime, especially a regime that talks about promoting freedom and democracy as Bush has been.”
Roy Dickson
