“THE United States is a damned country that deserves only to be cursed. It declares its own occupation of our lands legitimate, but brands our resistance as terrorists.” This was not the Libyan leader, Muammar Qaddafi, speaking 20 years ago, when his country was a pariah[1] and he was the butt[2] of international scorn. The words were spoken only last month, by the Libyan parliament’s deputy speaker, Ahmed Ibrahim, at a g________① in Tripoli, Libya’s capital, to commemorate its bombing by American aircraft in 1986.
Mr Ibrahim’s stridency[3] was, perhaps, inspired by America’s decision, in March, to keep Libya on its official list of state sponsors of terrorism, a dubious distinction it has held since 1979. All the more striking, then, that the American administration should have decided, this week, to restore full diplomatic relations.