This chapter describes the Reagan administration using Muammar Gaddafi as a pawn in their public relations ( PR ) strategy of creating a simplified , morally unambiguous foreign policy by blaming him for the 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks and the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing that killed US soldiers , both of which European security services attributed to Syrian intelligence agencies . Gaddafi is described as playing along for the sake of increasing his profile in the Arab world as a revolutionary . The 1986 United States bombing of Libya , 10 days after the disco bombing , is described as an operation carried out mainly for PR reasons , because attacking Syria would have been too risky
1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks
1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks
HyperNormalisation