Imagine If Gadaffi Had Nukes

When I went to Tripoli to interview that genocidal clown in late 2009, he told me the world would be better off with MORE nuclear weapons.

Emerging from behind a hinged bookshelf - I kid you not - he sat down to lecture me about the need for a Palestinian state to have the nuclear option in their struggle against Israeli overlordship.

But here's the key thing - and one currently ignored by much of the day-to-day hullabaloo about how long the Colonel can cling on to life, if not power.

Muammar Gadaffi very nearly got his hands on the bomb.

His nuclear programme was said to be well advanced when he unexpectedly decided to halt its development.

Why?

Because he had seen the American invasion of Iraq, an invasion predicated on the - ultimately - fruitless search for WMD.

He thought he was next.

Nobody is queuing up to praise president Bush's foresight. And it's hard to imagine that an Administration which failed to see the insurgency coming, guessed that Gadaffi would surrender his fissile material as a consequence.

But he did. And it is right to see that as a positive by-product from the otherwise senseless bloodletting in Iraq.

Because, if Gadaffi had his finger on the nuclear trigger now, where would he stop?

He has no compunction about mowing down civilian protesters with anti-aircraft guns firing 'over their sights'.

He is happy to sanction the bombing of his people by jets. He is keen to warn the West that if they side against him, he will encourage a mass migration of economic refugees as a result.

What would he have been prepared to do if he had the bomb