According to conservatives, one of the alleged victories of Bush’s Middle East strategy, such as it is, was the renunciation of terror by Qaddafi. The logic was, Qaddafi saw that the U.S. was willing to invade countries perceived as sponsoring terror, and he realized that he’d better straighten up and fly right, so there you namby-pamby doubting thomas liberals!
While the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, was renouncing terrorism and negotiating the lifting of sanctions last year, his intelligence chiefs ordered a covert operation to assassinate the ruler of Saudi Arabia and destabilize the oil-rich kingdom, according to statements by two participants in the conspiracy.