corrente

As usual, Atrios nails it.

Though the timing is a little odd, isn't it? They work on the deal for nine months, and then, while Saddam's capture is still in the news...


Anyhow, it was sanctions, not the war. The timing is just a little backhander from Qaddafi. WaPo:

Libya's stunning decision yesterday to surrender its weapons of mass destruction followed two decades of international isolation and some of the world's most punishing economic sanctions. In the end, Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gaddafi was under so much pressure that he was forced to seek an end to the economic and political isolation threatening his government -- and his own survival, according to U.S. and British officials and outside experts.

So, try to restrain that strut, Pretzel Boy.

And, oh yeah, the oil. Reuters:

Lifting sanctions could allow U.S. oil companies back into Libya, where they once produced more than one million barrels per day (bpd) and where oil facilities could reach two million bpd within five years, the U.S. Energy Department says.

U.S. sanctions dating from 1982 and strengthened in 1986, ban the import of Libyan crude oil, as well as direct trade and commercial contracts, and keep U.S. firms out of Libya. (Additional reporting by Louis Charbonneau in Vienna; Heba Kandil in Dubai and Bernard Woodall in New York)