If Saddam had embraced as complete a transformation as Gaddafi apparently has, he would still be in power in Iraq today. Gaddafi's (why can't we have one spelling for his name?) decision does seem to me to be related to the Bush-Blair policy with regards to Iraq. Once they showed that the UN would not hold them back, he must have realized he was playing with fire by having a secretive nuclear as well as crude chemical weapons programs.
The knock-on effects of war are always unpredictable. This seems to be a positive one and makes the war more defensible from the American perspective (as I've said, I always thought it was justified from the perspective of the average Iraqi).
In one of those "why today" moments, Al Kennedy's silly article looks even sillier today after the Libyan announcement. This article is a neat & tidy summary of anti-Americanism.
