Ideological Contradictions And Evolution Of The Relations Between Usa And Libya(1969-2011)

Libya is located in north Africa, the south coast of Mediterranean and the west wing of MiddleEast, she play an important role in international politicshas because its superior geographical position andrich natural resources. In1951, Libya declared its independence and was established the United Kingdomwith which the Idris I becoming the king of Libya, then he implemented to close the West of the diplomaticpolicy. In1969, Qaddafi came to power through the martial coup. In the early time of Qaddafi’s rule, he hasstrong ideological colors which include the revolutionary nationalism ideology, Islamism, pan-Arabism,against-colonialism, against-western hegemonism, pan-Africanist etc. Under the guidance of such radicalideology, Libya retrieved military base of the U.S. in the domestic forcing its troops to pull of Libya first,then launched the nationalize movement of the west’s big oil companies in Libya. In terms of the culturaldifference, Qaddafi removed the traces of the western culture in Libya and highlighted the features ofLibya—an Arab and Islamic country. In the diplomatic policy, he supported the Palestinian people’sstruggle against Israeli aggression and national liberation movement, opposed the power manipulating theinternational affairs, moreover he supported all kinds of organizations and powers of anti-American,anti-Western and anti-Israeli. Libya’s actions seriously damage the national interests of the United Statesand other western countries, so the relations was hostility and cold before the President Ronald Reaganbeing in his power. In1980, the United States and Libya’s international relations were from extremehostility and apathy to the military confrontation, the United States took advantage of its military power. In1980, the hawks to Libya after Ronald Reagan in the White House, the United States and Libya’sinternational relations by extreme hostility and apathy, go to the military confrontation, the United Statesseveral times to take advantage of its military power to strike on Libya. In1988, after the airliner bombingover Lockerbie, the United States and Britain affirmed that Libyan intelligence work created this air crashthrough the investigation and carried out international sanctions against Libya through the United Nations.Under the strong pressure of international sanctions, Libya had to face the reality, moderated its radicalideology and tried to ease relations with the United States to seek to lift sanctions from the internationalcommunity. However, this actions did not achieve the significant effect.In2001,"9·11" incident of U.S. broke out, Libya took this opportunity to sent messages to U.S. to support and cooperate with the U.S. war on terror, in addition to that Libya took concrete measuresto settle Lockerbie incident, gave up the research and development of weapons of mass destruction.Through these measures, Libya finally achieved detente with the western countries, and made theinternational community to lift the sanctions against Libya for more than ten years, and thus Libya cameinto the international community once again.At the beginning of2011, the so-called "Arab spring" among the Arab region in north Africaappeared, the unrest eventually spread to Libya. The U.S-led western countries in Libya had a limited airarmed intervention to protect Libyan civilians and supported Libya’s rebels, eventually toppled the regimeof Qaddafi.In the conflict between the United States and Libya, ideology plays an important role.Ideological is a kind of systematized and theorized consciousness which plays a guiding role to the state’sbehavior, it can provide legitimacy for political group behavior and strengthen the integration of pluralisticsociety, it is also an important source of national soft power and is helpful to the realization of the interestsof the state. At the meanwhile, the ideology itself is also a kind of national interest. The process ofrelationship between Libya in Qaddafi with U.S., the differences of ideology is the important reason forthe conflict between the two countries. U.S. is on the basis of different conditions by using pressure orcontact means to force them to change their position for this countries who deviate from its values. Therelaxed relation between Libya and U.S. stays only on the surface of peace, Qaddafi’s "bow" is no optionwith expediency.