OKAY, THIS ACTUALLY WAS SMART DIPLOMACY: In U.S.-Libya Nuclear Deal, a Qaddafi Threat Faded Away. “Senior administration officials and Pentagon planners, as they discuss sanctions and a possible no-fly zone to neutralize the Libyan air force, say that the 2003 deal removed Colonel Qaddafi’s biggest trump card: the threat of using a nuclear weapon, or even just selling nuclear material or technology, if he believed it was the only way to save his 42-year rule. . . . Today, with father and son preparing for a siege of Tripoli, the success of a joint American-British effort to eliminate Libya’s capability to make nuclear and chemical weapons has never, in retrospect, looked more important.”

UPDATE: Reader John Eschenbrenner emails: “Oh, what I wouldn’t have given to be a fly on the wall when the NYT made the decision to print an article that would dare to suggest that George W. Bush did something right.”