By Samantha Pergadia '11

United States ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz said that "continued engagement with Libya is in our long-term national interest," during an afternoon speech at the Woodrow Wilson School Dec. 4.

A unique aspect of the event was that it was streamed live to Tripoli, where students from six Libyan universities gathered at the U.S. embassy to watch the speech and participate in a question and answer session with the ambassador and with Princeton and Woodrow Wilson School students present in the audience. Showing their support for Princeton, the Libyan students wore orange and black lanyards around their necks.

“I thought it would be useful to take stock of our relationship and make the case, once again, about why continued engagement with Libya is in our long-term national interest,” Cretz said.

Cretz added, however, that recent events indicate that “bilateral engagement will not be welcome.” Cretz specifically cited the August release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi—who has served eight years in prison for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988—as adding to hostility between the U.S. and Libya.

 “The image of the convicted killer of 189 Americans being met with such a warm welcome struck a deep chord in the U.S. and occasioned anger on the part of the families of the victims,” Cretz said.

Cretz added that our progress with Libya is still short of the long way it has to go.

“Libya needs to understand us at the same time that they assert that we need to understand them,” Cretz said. 

Cretz outlined several key areas in which engagement with Libya is of national interest, including counterterrorism efforts, nuclear nonproliferation, and economic and commercial cooperation.

Citing Obama’s “requests for a world without nuclear weapons,” Cretz said that Libya has “kept its commitment in this regard and has worked seriously with international partners to fully dismantle its weapons of mass destruction program.”

Cretz added that as part of the nonproliferation efforts with Libya, the U.S. is working with Libyan scientists to convert former W.M.D. facilities to “peaceful uses,’ such as pharmaceutical plants and medical centers.

“Continued cooperation is integral to our efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons,” Cretz said.

Cretz also discussed Libya’s key role in the fight against “violent extremism,” noting that Libya has fought against the expansion of Al-Qaeda, has taken a position against ransom paid for kidnappings and has taken a lead in developing new approaches to counterterrorism. 

“Libya has moved from being a sanctioned isolated machine, which promoted terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, into a country fully engaged with the international community that provides leadership on several key fronts,” Cretz said. 

Cretz also added that Libya can play an important role to resolve policy problems in Africa and help strengthen the African Union. 

“Libya occupies a strategic position as a bridge in the heart of the Mediterranean,” Cretz said.

Cretz added that Libya’s “great wealth and rich natural resources” make it of economic interest for the U.S. to have amicable relations as Libya starts opening up to international investments.

“We have the unique opportunity to help shape Libya’s role in the 21st century, to further our shared interests in regional stability and establish a joint vision for mutually-beneficial exchanges and trade-offs,” Cretz said. 

The question and answer portion of the talk sought to create the “engagement in the educational and cultural spheres” that Cretz talked about in his speech. Unlike most Q&A sessions, this one allowed Princeton and Libyan students to ask questions both of the ambassador and of one another.

One Libyan student asked if there were scholarship applications for undergraduates to study in the U.S., while another inquired about the admissions procedure for acceptance to Princeton. Cretz emphasized the importance of education programs that allow Libyan students to study abroad and discussed programs such as the Fulbright.

One Libyan student, who is an English major, asked if any of the Arabic students could comment on their difficulty learning and pronouncing the letters of the Arabic alphabet. Several Princeton students responded to this question, some using their Arabic in the answer.

“It’s hard to understand history and current events without understanding what others are speaking, “ said Michael Gibbs ’12, who has been studying Arabic at Princeton.

Cretz was nominated by President Bush in 2007 to serve as the first U.S. Ambassador to Libya since 1972. His previous policy experience includes diplomatic posts in Israel, Egypt and Syria. He had most recently served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. Apart from his policy experience, Cretz has advanced academic degrees in English literature and linguistics.