Stood near a Bedouin tent outside Tripoli on Wednesday March 24 2004, Tony Blair offered what he called “the hand of friendship” to Muammer Gaddafi. That five-second handshake with the Libyan leader was one of the most remarkable moments in Mr Blair’s decade-long premiership and in the recent history of the Middle East.
For years, Col Gaddafi had been the pariah of the western world, the man US President Ronald Reagan dubbed the “mad dog” of the Middle East, the instigator of terrorist attacks across Europe. Yet here was Britain’s charismatic leader standing alongside him, declaring that the whole world would benefit from Libya becoming a “strong partner of the west”.
That handshake quickly came to be known as the “deal in the desert”. Col Gaddafi promised to cease sowing terror, in return for which international oil companies would help him extract Libya’s huge oil reserves.
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