Middle East

Sarkozy’s Cabinet Shuffle: Will Anything Change?

Though hastily organized in appearance, the cabinet shuffle announced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy Sunday night was in fact designed to do something that had long become inevitable: dump scandal-plagued Foreign Affairs Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie. But while Sarkozy justified the shake-up as necessary to get France’s sidelined …

Africa’s Feeble Response to Libya

Why has Africa’s response to the Libyan regime’s shooting of protesters – and hiring of African mercenaries to actually pull the triggers – been so weak? So far, the continent’s reaction amounts to this: the African Union has condemned “the disproportionate use of force against civilians,” which pretty much implies that cracking down on …

Winds of Libyan Change Envelop British Government in Stench

Tony Blair’s 2004 meeting with Muammar Gaddafi was momentous by any standards. Blair’s arrival in Libya marked the first visit to the country by a British prime minister since 1943, and proceeded against protests by some relatives of the Lockerbie dead. His purpose was to encourage Gaddafi’s perceived desire “to make common cause with us …

Algeria Rescinds Emergency Powers–But Isn’t Bending To Popular Unrest

Was the lifting Thursday of Algeria’s 19-year state of emergency a sign the country’s corrupt, authoritarian regime is responding to the growing public unrest that brought down the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt—and now looks set to topple Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi? Without any doubt. Yet it would be naïve to interpret the repealing …

Is Iran Really the Winner in the Arab Revolt?

“Arab Unrest Propels Iran as Saudi Influence Declines,” warned a New York Times headline Thursday, above an article noting that the democratic uprisings across the Arab world have put paid to the idea of a pro-U.S. “alliance of moderates” — Arab autocracies and Israel — joining hands to curb Iran’s rise as a regional power.

In …

Can Facebook Rescue the Palestinian Authority?

Israel’s deputy foreign minister meant it as a put-down a couple of months ago when he said the Palestinian Authority was on its way to establishing a “Facebook state.” At the time a flurry of governments, many of them South American, were giving a calculated boost to Palestinian aspirations by upgrading PA diplomatic missions …

‘Peace Process’ – What Peace Process?

It ought to have come as no surprise that the Western-backed Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad this week offered to bring the Islamist Hamas movement into a unity government: Sure, Hamas participation in a Palestinian government has long been a red line for both Israel and the United States, but in case nobody noticed, the …

While the Bahrainis Talk, the Saudis Are Leaning In, Listening

“Bahrain is the tent pole that holds Saudi Arabia up,” a wealthy Shia businessman told me. “If Bahrain falls, so does Saudi.” We were sitting on the deck of his yacht, overlooking the sliver of gray water that separated the island nation of Bahrain from its Saudi sponsor. When I asked him if I could quote him by name, he …

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