arab uprisings

Obama, Gaddafi and American Credibility

“My fellow Americans,” said President Ronald Reagan during a soundcheck for a TV appearance in 1984. “I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”

Reagan was joking, of course. Not only was the U.S. not going to bomb the Soviet Union; he knew full well …

Israeli Historian Reckons Syria’s Assad Will Fight to the End

Moshe Ma’oz has spent his adult life studying Syria. He advised Israeli Prime Ministers Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin on how best to make peace with the regime headed Hafez Assad, the father of the current president, Bashar Assad, who faces protests across the country. The rebellion is clearly triggered by the revolts known …

Why NATO May Stop Short of Bombing Gaddafi’s Regime to Smithereens

The question is not whether Libya’s rebels will capture Colonel Gaddafi’s birthplace of Sirte, or storm his citadel in Tripoli; it’s whether NATO will hand them those prizes by escalating its air war with the aim of destroying Gaddafi’s regime. Coalition air strikes have broken the grip of Gaddafi’s forces on the cities of eastern Libya …

Cold Case: How Libya’s Revolution Might Solve a 1984 Murder

One April evening in 1984, an after-work drink took a surreal turn. On the way to a bar, we skirted a police cordon at the entrance to St James’s Square in central London; we had barely lifted our pints before armed officers clattered into our midst and informed us that the cordon had been extended. We were not to leave. The Libyan …

Why a New Gaza War is Possible, But Unlikely

In a conflict that has raged for 63 years, all violence can be termed “retaliation”. Israeli warplanes and tanks pound targets inside the densely populated Palestinian coastal enclave of Gaza in response to the dozens of rockets and mortars fired by militants over the past ten days; Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other smaller Palestinian …

Gaddafi Resilience Poses Challenges for the West’s Libya Mission

Never mind who will command the Libya air war; the far larger problem lies in determining its purpose, terms and limits, and in honing a realistic strategy in terms of the limited commitment – both by measure of time and scale – of most of its authors.

By all accounts, Libya’s air force and its air defenses have been taken out of the …

With the Fate of Libya in the Balance, Coalition Leaders Start to Squabble

Just days ago, the U.N. Security Council passed a landmark resolution mandating intervention in Libya, backed by what seemed like tacit international consensus on the intolerable behavior of the Gaddafi regime. U.S., French and British aircraft commenced strikes on Libyan military positions, reversing the advance of pro-government forces …

Better Late than Never? British MPs Vote for Libya No-Fly Zone

Here’s an example of democracy in action, a privilege Western politicians are keen to extend as widely as possible. Today, members of Britain’s House of Commons discussed the wisdom of enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya. At 10.17 pm, almost seven hours after the start of their debate and more than three days after the establishment of …

Don’t Bet on a Brief – or Limited – War in Libya

President Barack Obama wants a brief and limited war in Libya; Colonel Muammar Gaddafi promises a long and messy one. And, unfortunately for Obama, Gaddafi may be in a better position to deliver.

Obama, together with France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, have made clear that they would like to …

Libya: Another Graveyard of Empires?

With U.S. and European strikes now pounding Libyan government positions, a new chapter is being written in the long and bloody history of Western military intervention in North Africa. At present, it seems unlikely that foreign governments will deploy boots on the ground. But here are some invasions of Libya that didn’t go quite as …

Egypt Resumes Gas Flow to Israel, but Relations Still in Flux

It took five weeks instead of five days, but Egypt has resumed natural gas shipments to Israel , repairing the damage from a sabotaged pipeline and offering succor to Israeli hopes that the world may not have turned entirely upside down after all.

Israel relies on Egypt for nearly half of its natural gas needs, and it has a plenty of …

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