It’s increasingly looking like the only factor capable of resolving the international community’s dilemma in Libya is also the one element to that will never cooperate in finding a solution: Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi himself. Because as the meetings, summits, and declarations of coalition partners come and go, it becomes …
France
France: Hate Crimes on the Decline, Xenophobia on the Rise
The good news, according to France’s official National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH), was the number of racist and anti-Semitic acts in France dropped significantly in 2010—down 13.6% from 2009. But the bad news, the CNCDH’s annual report adds, is that in contrast to that decline in the number of reported racist …
France’s Burqa Ban Comes Into Force With Much Noise, Little Impact
It sparked the protest, denunciation, and even arrests many had feared, yet as France’s legal ban of the burqa took effect April 11, it had many viewing the interdiction of facial coverings in public as one of the strangest and least enforceable laws in the long and cluttered French history of trying to legislate every aspect of …
Sarkozy Goes to War: Is France Back Once More at the Center of World Affairs?
France’s predominant role in international operations like the NATO-led mission over Libya–or this week’s United Nations helicopter strikes in Ivory Coast–have generated a flurry of media reports suggesting formerly Clark Kent-like French diplomats have shed their earlier mild mannered restraint, and have started wading into …
Ivory Coast: As Violence Intensifies, U.N. Finally Enters the Fray
For weeks, the U.N.’s mission in the Ivory Coast has sat pinned down in its quarters, watching as this West African country lurched toward civil war. An escalating conflict between the rival forces of Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara has led to hundreds, probably thousands of deaths and has displaced, by some counts, over a million …
Should France’s Moderate Conservatives Dump Sarkozy Before It’s Too Late?
The U.S. Republican party isn’t the only big conservative force in Western politics experiencing divisions between its traditionally moderate majority and a defiantly rightward-leaning wing. France’s ruling Union for a Popular Majority (UMP) is similarly witnessing public clashes between internal factions generated by efforts to …
Syria’s Alawites: The Minority Sect In the Halls of Power
In Syria, the house that the Assads built is facing its greatest challenge in decades. The country’s entire cabinet — in power since 2003 — resigned Mar. 29, in a bid by President Bashar Assad to nip a burgeoning uprising in the bud. Hundreds of thousands have reportedly rallied in support of the regime, following a fierce …
‘Arm the Rebels’ Cry Reflects Western Desperation on Libya
Talk by U.S. and British leaders of the possibility of arming Libya’s rebels is a sign of desperation. After all, the amorphous rebellion appears to have little military organization, and Secretary of State Clinton admits that the allies “do not know as much as we would like to” about its makeup. Leaders of the Benghazi-based National …
By Leaving Regime Change to the Libyans, Obama Aligns U.S. and Arab Goals
The U.S. and its allies saved the Libyan rebellion from being crushed by Gaddafi, and will continue to restrain the dictator from rolling back rebel gains. Now, “We will deny the regime arms, cut off its supply of cash, assist the opposition, and work with other nations to hasten the day when Gaddafi leaves power,” President Obama said …
More Polling, More Bad News For Sarkozy
French pundits who had feared an historically high score by the extreme-right National Front (FN) in Sunday’s second round of local polling breathed a sigh of relief when the party’s tally didn’t meet expectations. But while the FN’s 11% performance was well below its 15% first-round take—and nearly half of the 20% result some …
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 …
Could The UN Resolution On Libya Signal Sarkozy’s Political Rebound?
Though it took painfully long for the international community to mount its 11th hour intervention into what looked like a looming massacre in the Libya, it’s clear Thursday’s vote by the UN Security Council approving military action to halt fighting and protect civilians won’t signal the beginning to a swift end of the conflict …
Did Gaddafi Really Finance Sarkozy’s Presidential Victory? (Probably Not.)
Stop the presses–or, better yet, don’t.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi—the no-longer-as-credible-as-once-hoped son of Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi—is claiming his family financed the victorious 2007 campaign of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and now wants that money back. And if the Frenchman doesn’t pay up, the younger Gaddafi …