Vision statements come and go, usually unremarked and always unfulfilled. But today's effort by the self-styled Libyan Interim National Council, the western-backed government-in-waiting, is a masterpiece of the genre.
The two-page declaration, published to coincide with the international conference on Libya's future hosted in London by David Cameron, aspires to all that is correct, admirable, and fashionable in the booming nation-building and nation-shaping business.
Key words such as "transparent", "green", "empowerment", "tolerance" and "rights" litter its elegantly turned paragraphs. Wholesome sentiments about the social contract, civil society, political obligation, and the true awfulness of discrimination (in any shape or form) inform its ineffably do-gooding intent.
The new Libya, the declaration proclaims, will have a new constitution that (surprise, surprise) "separates and balances the three branches of legislative, executive and judicial power". If this sounds familiar, it is.
Step forward, James Madison, US founding father: the separation of powers has finally reached the Barbary Coast.
Labour party think-tanks and other social engineers could be suspected of having a hand in drafting the next bit: Libya, it seems, is now pledged to "the development of genuine economic partnerships between a strong and productive public sector, a free private sector, and a supportive and effective civil society which overstands [sic] corruption and waste".
Who in constitution-lite, deficit-depressed Britain could ask for more? While Cameron and George Osborne slash the public sector, lucky Libyans will be building one up from scratch.
And just in case the oil multinationals were worried, there are written safeguards for them too. "The interests and rights of foreign nationals and companies will be protected," the declaration says, right there in black and white. So much for Gaddafi's threats to kick them out and sell his black gold to the Chinese!
A final paragraph comes straight out of the Foreign Office's playbook. Libya, it states, will be "a state which upholds the values of international justice, citizenship, the respect of international humanitarian law and human rights declarations, as well as condemning authoritarian and despotic regimes."
Model Libya, a new paradigm for the modern age, will also "join the international community in rejecting and denouncing racism, discrimination and terrorism while strongly supporting peace, democracy and freedom".
So that's it, then. Job done. Except first, they have to win the war.
