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 …
Middle East
Libya After Gaddafi: Why How He Leaves is as Important as When
As I was preparing to leave Tripoli, I had a conversation with an Algerian British journalist who had just been released from detention by Libyan forces for reporting in the east of the country. He was angry that he had been picked up for doing his job, but didn’t let it color his reporting on the situation. As I had been gleaning …
Why the BRICS Summit Won’t Accomplish Anything
Yep, just what the world needs—another international summit. On Thursday, leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa convened under the palm trees of China’s Hainan Island for the third BRICS summit. The acronym was coined back in 2001 by an economist at Goldman Sachs to describe the bright emerging economies of Brazil, …
Iraq’s Assault on Camp Ashraf: The Tenuous Life of a Fringe Iranian Faction
Update: The U.N. reported on April 14 that 34 people were killed during the raid on Camp Ashraf last week.
Was ever there a stranger lot than the Mujahedin-e-Khalk Organization? Today its military arm stands braced for the worst in Camp Ashraf, a dusty military base tucked into a corner of a once-welcoming host nation, Iraq, that …
Why Egypt’s Generals Need Mubarak – as a Whipping Boy
The decision by Egypt’s current rulers to drag former President Hosni Mubarak and his sons into court next week to investigate allegations of corruption and abuses of power is certainly a crowd-pleaser: The demand for action against the leading lights of the ancien regime had been the key demand of the tens of thousands of protestors who …
NATO Confronts a Crisis in Libya: Its Air War Has Not Dislodged Gaddafi
The split in NATO over its Libya operation ought to come as no surprise: it’s precisely because of the differences within the alliance over the terms and goals of the mission, and the inevitably limiting effect of the alliance’s consensus-based decisionmaking, that France had been reluctant to cede command to NATO in the first place. But …
Why a Cease-Fire Looms in Libya
“From the very beginning we have been asking that the exit of Gaddafi and his sons take place immediately,” said Mustafa Abdul Jalil, leader of Libya’s rebel National Council on Monday, rejecting an African Union ‘roadmap’ to peace that had supposedly been accepted by Colonel Gaddafi. “We cannot consider this or any future proposal that …
Egypt After Mubarak: More Israel-Friendly Than Expected
The aftermath of the Egyptian revolution continues to offer Israel more comfort than many expected – but also, over the weekend, a warning.
The latest good news is a poll. Despite fears that the demise of President Hosni Mubarak would also spell the end of Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel, nearly two-thirds of Egyptians in a …
How to Understand the Responsibility to Protect
Since the international community found itself stepping in to try to stem burgeoning humanitarian disasters in Libya and the Ivory Coast, much has been made of the principles behind the interventions. A cadre of liberal internationalists (in Europe, often lapsed socialists) saw in the two countries — particularly in Libya — a mandate …
U.S. Faces a Libya Stalemate, What are its Options?
That which has been obvious for some time now is finally being officially acknowledged: Libya’s power struggle is stalemated, and is likely to remain that way on the basis of the current level of NATO commitment. That was the grim assessment in congressional testimony Thursday by General Carter Ham, the U.S. commander who led the initial …
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 …
Why Goldstone’s ‘Edit’ Won’t Ease Pressure on Israel
Judge Richard Goldstone’s Sunday op ed in the Washington Post reconsidering the allegation in his 2009 UN report that Israel had deliberately targeted Palestinian civilians in its 2008/9 Gaza war was greeted with premature euphoria in Israeli circles. Goldstone himself made clear, Wednesday, that he has no intention of withdrawing any …
Were the Israelis Behind the ‘Mystery’ Air Strike in Sudan?
About ten hours before a warplane roared down the Red Sea, crossed into Sudanese airspace and let fly a missile at a sedan, killing both of the people inside, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Amos Gilad offered a piece of advice about secret military actions to audience of diplomats and journalists in a Jerusalem hotel.
“Never boast,” Gilad said. “Be …