Keep your friends close and your enemies closer
It seems that the Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is trying to appease the United States while simultaneously denouncing us to the rest of the Arab world. In a summit held today, he went off on a rant warning that after the United States toppling of Saddam’s regime, no Arab country is safe and that “your turn is next.”
“Your turn is next,” Gadhafi told the leaders, some of whom looked stunned while others broke into laughter at his frankness. “Destruction will be yours.”
In recent years, Gadhafi has dramatically repaired ties with the United States — once his top enemy — by giving up his country’s weapons of mass destruction programs and paying compensation for the 1988 Pan Am bombing. Libya is hoping for a landmark visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, though one is still not set, and has stepped up economic ties to the West.
Still, that hasn’t stopped Gadhafi from denouncing U.S. domination of the world and criticizing other Arab countries for their closeness to Washington.
I don’t know about you, but I think that this really doesn’t sound like someone we want to get too close to. It seems all Gadhafi wants to do is lull us into thinking that he isn’t dangerous and then stab us in the back. Its like he is taking the whole “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” thing to heart.
We are obviously one of his enemies.
