Ion Mihai Pacepa was chief of Romanian foreign intelligence in the 1970’s. Before defecting to the United States, he was Moammar Gadhafi’s handler in the Soviet bloc’s attempt to use Libya as a weapon against the United States. In his National Review article, he describes how he worked with Gadhafi to develop chemical and biological weapons for Libya in exchange for Libya’s oil money.

Pacepa believes it is no coincidence that Gadhafi renounced weapons of mass destruction when the US invaded Iraq and captured Saddam Hussein. (He also spells Gadhafi as Khaddafi. But he’s met the man, so he probably knows better how to spell Gadhafi than I do.)

In my judgment Khaddafi is not a man of honor in the making. Rather, he is afraid for his life. He does not relish Saddam’s fate. Tyrants are always paranoid — for good reason. Ceaucescu never ate anything unless it had been tasted for poison by somebody else. Khaddafi calculates that his best chance of holding onto wealth and position for his golden years is by cutting a deal and getting Libya delisted as one of the world’s worst rogue regimes….

Appeasement never works with such men. But fear does.

Mark that last paragraph, all you who keep saying that diplomacy alone led Gadhafi to offer to give up his weapons of mass destruction.

He also includes this little lovely little description of these three dictators: “Khaddafi, Saddam, and Ceaucescu were all physical cowards who compensated by acting like kings.”