Libyan leader Col. Muammar Qaddafi spent five days in France last week meeting with senior officials and signing billions of dollars’ worth of business deals. The trip — Qaddafi’s first to France since 1973 — marked the full normalisation of European relations with the long-time pariah state. It also prompted many French citizens, including high-level officials, to criticise the warm welcome given to a colonel associated with terrorism, torture, and repression.

Back in Washington, the resumption of diplomatic ties with Libya is not going as smoothly as the Bush administration had hoped. But just as several French officials neglected to meet with Qaddafi, the US should rethink normalising relations with Libya. The country continues to behave like a rogue state. The rehabilitation of Libya — the terrorist-supporting state with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) — had been considered one of the crowning

foreign-policy achievements of the Bush administration. Republicans and Democrats alike pointed to Libya as an example for rogue states to renew ties with the US and reintegrate into the international community.

But this fall, US-Libyan relations hit a snag: Congress denied the administration’s 2008 budget request to construct a new embassy. Congress also let it be known that it would not hold confirmation hearings for Gene Kretz, the administration’s ambassador-designate to Tripoli. And now it appears Secretary Rice’s travel plans have been shelved. Congress opposes plans for normalisation because of a dispute regarding the financial settlements on the Lockerbie and La Belle Disco terrorism cases.

Questions of compensation aside, there are plenty of reasons why the US should not have good relations with Libya. Libya today remains a ruthless dictatorship. Its human rights record is “appaling,” according to Human Rights Watch. Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor held in Libya for eight years for allegedly infecting children with HIV were only released in July after France agreed to sell Tripoli $400 million in advanced weaponry. And finally, there is the ongoing matter of state sponsorship of terrorism.

Imperfect as it is, Libya’s rehabilitation remains the best working model available. Washington’s decades-long commitment to sanctions and the administration’s policy of aggressive Weapons of Mass Destruction interdiction succeeded in bringing Tripoli to the table. But the structure of the deal left the US with little leverage to counter ongoing problematic Libyan behaviour. America’s experience with Libya provides an important lesson for the future.

The US should realise that authoritarian states do not readily change their stripes. In this regard, the Libya experience does not bode well for the future. After all, if Washington cannot convince Libya to meet even modest financial commitments, what can we expect of deals with even more challenging states such as North Korea, Iran, and Syria? — The Christian Science Monitor