| Posted By Amina Anderson October 15, 2008 Condoleezza Rice arrived in Libya on Friday in the first trip by a U.S. Secretary of State in 55 years. According to Reuters, Rice is set to meet Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, once described by late U.S. President Ronald Reagan as the mad dog of the Middle East, and share “iftar” with him – the meal for breaking the fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which started this week. Reports say Rice may sign a trade and investment deal during her visit but experts say the main message is to signal a new era in U.S.-Libyan relations that have been marked by decades of mistrust and violence. For Washington, Rice’s brief trip is an incredible turnaround in one of the longest hostile relationships with a country. The last U.S. Secretary of State to visit Tripoli was John Foster Dulles in May 1953, before Rice was even born. "It's a historic stop. This is the first time since 1953 that a U.S. Secretary of State has visited Libya," said state department spokesman Sean McCormack when he announced the visit. "In that period of time, we've had a man land on the moon, had the internet, the Berlin Wall fall, and we've had 10 U.S. presidents." Relations between Libya and the U.S. began to warm after Tripoli gave up weapons of mass destruction in 2003, renounced terrorism, and accepted its responsibility for the Pan Am airline bombing over Lockerbie in 1988. In 2006, Washington removed Libya from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. "I think people in Libya saw that the way they were pursuing their national interest was not going to work for them. It was costing them a very high price for their country," David Welch, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, told the BBC in an interview. "When they decided they didn't want to have WMDs anymore, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair acknowledged it in a very public fashion." But even after the lifting of U.S. and UN sanctions on Libya and the improved ties with the U.S., a main obstacle remained that held back Rice’s visit to the country – compensation for the families of victims of attacks linked to Libya. Libya paid most of the money for the Lockerbie victims ($10m per family) but held out on the last instalment of $2m – partly because it was frustrated it was not getting more economic and political benefits out of the U.S. But last month, an agreement was reached to set up an international compensation fund and to restore sovereign immunity for Libya, ending all pending lawsuits against Tripoli in U.S. courts. According to the BBC, the fund will be set up in Libya to compensate all U.S. and Libyan claimants – including relatives of the victims of the U.S. bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986, which killed at least 40 people. Many analysts believe that the normalization of ties between the U.S. and Libya could be a motive for other nations to follow suit. It could also motivate Washington to replicate its diplomatic approach with other states, like Iran. "In Tehran they should be sitting in their offices and conducting an assessment of whether their policies are paying off or not," said David Welch, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs, adding that Libya, its economy and oil producers would benefit greatly from the full resumption of U.S.-Libyan ties. However, Mr Welch and other foreign policy experts are aware that Iran is very different from Libya. "Libya was relatively easy because the issues were relatively neat and didn't resonate in the same way in the United States. Iran is not in that category," said Jon Alterman, Middle East director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Analysts believe that Iran may be watching closely to see how the U.S. relationship with Libya will proceed and assess its benefits if it decides to follow Tripoli’s route. But one must keep in mind that Iran has a more strategic role in the Middle East than Libya, so the process of normalizing relations with the U.S. will be much longer and more complex. "We were very wise, now we are a safe country… we are trading now with our ex-enemies, we just have friends, no enemies anymore, no embargo, no sanctions, no threat," said Libyan leader's son, Saif al-Islam. Despite this enthusiasm, Tripoli may be disappointed in its long term relationship with Washington. "Libya is still not a strategic consideration for the United States, although reversing its hostile relationship with the United States was the most strategic decision taken by Libya," said Mr Alterman. Muammar Gaddafi may have reflected this when he said this week that his country did not want to be friends with the U.S., it just wanted to be left alone. | 
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