Positive Unintended Consequences Of The Iraq War

On July 15 of this year, Bloomberg.com ran a story stating that Libya was on the verge of making a nuclear weapon when they gave up their nuclear program.  Remember, Libya had been attacked under the Reagan administration for its terrorist activities.  I am sure that when they saw what happened to Iraq because of suspected nuclear activity, they did not want to be next on the list.

Anyway, Little Green Footballs has a video and transcript of Gaddafi’s statement saying that Libya was ready to assembly a nuclear weapon when they gave up their program.  One of the highlights:

“The world had changed, alliances had changed, the world map had changed – against whom would we use the nuclear bomb? We searched and couldn’t find an enemy worthy of us using the nuclear bomb on. In addition, we thought: How will we protect this nuclear bomb? How will we dismantle it and hide each part separately? How will we assemble it when necessary? If there is a target – how will we protect the transportation of the bomb to the target? We found that the expenses and problems would endanger Libya more than [the bomb] would protect its security. Therefore, we decided to voluntarily shut down our nuclear program.”

Does anyone believe this would have happened without the invasion of Iraq?