It is a terrible warning for any leading Arab terrorist. You think you’ve got away with it. You haven’t been associated with the deaths of any westerners for at least 10 years. You’ve been in a perpetual state of paranoia, in case a US Navy Seal should pop out of your plumbing and peg you where it hurts.
You’ve been looking under your car, you’ve been twitching the curtains of your tent in case a Tomahawk cruise missile should be on its way; and just when you think the West has forgotten all about your crimes, they send you nemesis. No, they don’t send Bond. They don’t send an assassin. They send Tony Blair to meet you, and what does he do? He kisses you on both cheeks!
Yes, my friends, that is apparently to be the fate, somewhere in Tripoli, of the Libyan leader, the man Ronald Reagan called a “mad dog”. This is the man whose barbaric regime was unquestionably involved in the murder of hundreds of people, British and Americans, in the sky and on the ground at Lockerbie.
This same Libyan regime was responsible for the shooting in cold blood of WPC Yvonne Fletcher in St James’s Square, and for the shipping of heaven knows how much weaponry to the IRA. And how do we choose to requite him for his crimes? According to last night’s evening paper, Tony Blair is going to hail his “courage” and the pair are then going to smooch faster than you can say Mwah-mwah al-Gaddafi.
What an amazing way to run a war on terror. The Libyans have a leader who genuinely has a record as long as your arm in sponsoring terror; and he gets the kiss from Blair, because Libya has signalled that it is willing to do business with the West.