Commentary: Forget the ‘Libya model’ for North Korea - Karl P. Mueller

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Commentary: Forget the ‘Libya model’ for North Korea
Karl P. Mueller7 Min Read

North Korea is not like Libya. And those who think that Washington should look to the North African nation as a precedent for either denuclearization or regime change in Pyongyang are heading either for confusion or disappointment.

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton’s endorsement of the “Libya model” – in which Muammar Qaddafi’s regime abandoned its longstanding quest to develop nuclear weapons in 2003 and was overthrown in 2011 following a Western military intervention – recently caused a diplomatic flurry, drawing a sharp rebuke from Kim Jong Un and a contradiction from President Trump. In reality, the two situations have little in common.

Bolton’s comments – as well as subsequent remarks about the “Libya model” from Vice President Mike Pence – minimize the differences between Libya under Qaddafi and North Korea under Kim Jong Un. The most fundamental distinction is that Libya never possessed nuclear weapons, though readers of some reports saying that Qaddafi agreed to give up nuclear weapons in 2003 might easily imagine that it did.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mueller-northkorea-commentary/commentary-forget-the-libya-model-for-north-korea-idUSKCN1IX549