From alarmingly adversarial to calculatedly cool, US Secretary of State Rice's trip to Libya has highlighted the pitfalls and the tremendous opportunities of Americans doing business with Tripoli, writes Gamal Nkrumah Libya, it seems, is not so keen to show off its best face even though that face is apparently far more comely than it once was. The oil-rich North African nation has embraced economic deregulation and privatisation, and is fostering close economic and trade ties with Europe and perhaps in the near future America, to boot. Moreover, Libya no longer seems to deliberately stymie the nascent democratic process in Saharan African countries such as Chad, Niger and Mauritania and African nations further afield south of the Sahara. Libya has had a facelift, and if there are any lingering wrinkles that were not ironed out, Washington is turning a blind eye altogether. United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's historic visit to Libya last Thursday was not a cause for panic in the Arab world. Both Washington and the host nation pronounced Rice's two-day stay in Libya a resounding success. Political and economic deals were inconspicuously clinched. Neither did it produce embarrassing laugh-out-loud moments. It was by far her most important stop in her North African tour that also took her to Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Originally scheduled to stopover in Mauritania, Rice scrapped the idea of visiting the Northwest African desert nation in response to the military takeover that toppled the government of the democratically elected President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdullahi. Libya was implicated in supporting Mauritanian opposition forces and meddling in the country's domestic politics. Libyan largesse is often flaunted at rival factions with little apparent logic. The plain fact is that it was primarily economic in nature as much as it was political. The two-day visit by Rice to one of the most controversial regimes in the Arab world raised many eyebrows. Rice was the first highest ranking US official to visit Libya for more than 55 years when John Foster Dulles paid a visit to the late King Senousi of Libya before he was overthrown in a bloodless coup d'état engineered by Muammar Gaddafi in 1969. Fast developments in Iraq have changed everything. After the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Libyan leader dismantled his country's weapons of mass destruction, and the jingoistic rhetoric that characterised his regime became far more muted. Gaddafi has finally hoisted the white flag, having realised that Libya lacks the capacity to challenge Washington in Africa and the Arab world. Libya now seems bent on proving to the world in general and to the US in particular that rapprochement with Washington was never far from most Libyans' thoughts, despite all evidence to the contrary. Swords were crossed with Washington especially after 37 US military personnel were wounded in the 1986 bombing of a Berlin discotheque. The Americans suspected Libyan subversion. The 1988 bombing of the unfortunate Pan-Am flight over the Scottish village of Lockerbie poisoned relations between the West and Libya. Former US President Ronald Reagan derisively dismissed Gaddafi as a "mad dog", and proceeded to pound the Libyan capital Tripoli, killing scores including Gaddafi's adopted baby daughter. In a not so subtle jab, rather than receiving Rice in his trademark Bedouin tent, he received her in the bombarded presidential palace, now a museum, as a reminder to Rice of past American atrocities. Libya has to date provided the families of the victims of the Lockerbie tragedy with more than $1 billion of a scheduled $2.7 billion compensation. Rice, in a rather paternalistic tone, expressed guarded approval. "When countries are prepared to make strategic changes in direction, the US is prepared to respond," Rice told reporters in Tripoli. Rice, however, had her mind on more mundane matters. Like other prominent members of the administration of George W Bush, the US secretary of state has vested oil interests. She was a member of the board of directors for Chevron Corporation and headed Chevron's committee on public policy in 1991 until she resigned on 15 January 2001 to become part of the Bush administration. In honour of her dedication to Chevron, an oil tanker was christened the Condoleezza Rice in April 2001. Nobody can accuse the Libyan leader of a lack of vision and outstanding perspicacity. For the moment he poses as the champion of African unity. Nevertheless, a failure to communicate -- which incidentally was painfully manifest in the body language between Rice and her host, perhaps the chemistry just didn't work -- and a failure to admit mistakes and grievous errors have marred Gaddafi's often candid assessment of regional and international dynamics. The Libyan leader understands perfectly that the political landscape this autumn is pockmarked with danger. His detractors have dismissed him as being grotesquely self-indulgent. His admirers, however, have acclaimed the manner in which he has ingeniously manoeuvred his way through the sodden terrain of Arab and African politics. Ditching the Arab cause, Gaddafi has an ambitious investment programme in mega-infrastructural projects such as ports, airports, roads, power water and sanitation. Libya, after all, is one of the wealthiest countries in Africa. The country earns almost $13 billion in export revenues. And, the Libyan economy is booming thanks to the oil bonanza and its pampered six million citizens. Oil accounts for some 94 per cent of its exports and provides some 60 per cent of its government income. The country has tremendous economic resources with untapped mineral reserves in its sprawling deserts, and only 25 per cent of the country's territory have been exploited for oil and gas. It is against this backdrop that European oil companies have been doing brisk business in Libya. Now the American companies want to join the fray. Exxon Mobil, Occidental, Conoco Philips, Marathon Oil and Rice's own Chevron among others are eagerly lining up waiting to do lucrative business with Libya. But there is still a snag -- the US terrorism compensation law which the giant oil corporations are pressuring the Bush administration to drop in the case of Libya. Gaddafi is in no hurry to do business with the Americans. He's happy to give the Americans a good long run for their money. He has, after all, the Europeans, Russians, Chinese and Venezuelans itching to scupper the Americans schemes before they are tried out.
