USA Today: More than 100 leading Saudi academics and activists are calling on the oil-rich country’s monarch to enact sweeping changes, including setting up a constitutional monarchy, as mass protests that have engulfed other Arab nations lapped at Saudi Arabia’s shores.
This is utterly unbelievable. I mean, they’re not even trying to disguise it. When right-wing organizations began publishing the cartoons defaming the Prophet Muhammad a few years ago, they tried to hide their Islamophobia by saying that they were doing it to make a point in favor of the first amendment, but these people are just spewing hate. See for yourselves.
It’s good news that the interim Mubarak-selected PM has just resigned, but the struggle for democracy in Egypt has a long way to go.  al Jazeera English: The arrest and sentencing of Amr Abdallah Elbihiry, 33, an Egyptian activist, has sparked outrage among pro-democracy activists and human rights groups in Egypt.
Elbihiry was convicted and sentenced to five years in military prison on Wednesday by Egypt’s Supreme Military Court, after being charged with assaulting a public official on duty and for breaking curfew.
Elbihiry was arrested during the early hours of Saturday morning, in front of the Council of Ministers headquarters, at a peaceful demonstration demanding the resignation of Ahmed Shafiq, the interim prime minister.
He was one of a group of protesters that took part in a peaceful sit-in, which was violently dispersed by the Egyptian armed forces, and military police. Protesters were reportedly beaten with sticks, others with electric shock batons.
The armed forces apologised the following day on their official Facebook page wall claiming that it was a mistake due to unintended clashes between the military police and the protesters.
Dr Laila Mustafa Soueif, a lecturer at Cairo Universitywas present at the sit-in and witnessed first hand the clashes and the initial arrest of Elbihiry.
“I was in the sit-in on Kasr el Aini street, when it was dispersed forcibly by police and military elements. As we were leaving, military elements took Amr Abdallah ElBihiry.
“They [military police] ruthlessly beat him up, my friends and I refused to leave without Amr. A high ranking officer calmed us down, and ordered a lower rank officer to release Amr, his face was severely injured. We all walked away together. But after we parted, we later found out that Amr and five others were arrested.
“Everyone was later released except Amr, he was accused of possessing a pistol. I can affirm that Amr had no weapon in his possession , otherwise military officials would not have released him in the first place,” she said.
The Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rightsand Amnesty International have condemned the sentence and have called on the Egyptian authorities to immediately release ElBihiry.
“The excessive use of force against the protesters on Saturday cannot be justified. An apology cannot replace an investigation. The use of electric shock batons and the allegations of torture or other ill-treatment should be fully and impartially investigated and those responsible brought to justice,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, the deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
Many Egyptians fear that the latest crackdown on political activists could be the start of a trend of quick military trials in Egypt without the chance for a fair hearing.
Egyptian activists have been campaigning for the release of Elbihiry via social media tools Facebook and Twitter. One activist writes:
“It takes them weeks, months, even years to try the criminals, murderers, and money launderers from the regime, yet this young man gets indicted in less than a week?
“What about the murderers who killed peaceful civilians during January 25? Millions of people witnessed them, why haven’t they been arrested and tried?” wrote a blogger.
Many protesters are currently camping out in Tahrir [Liberation] Square, following ongoing protests calling for the resignation of other key figures of the former regime. And many call for millions to attend Friday’s protest and to raise the demand for Elbihiry’s release along with other protesters arrested since January 25, and the resignation of interim prime minister Ahmed Shafiq.
“Nothing has changed, the current regime must go, it is part of the old regime and they are still practicing their old tricks on us,” said one of the protesters in Tahrir, echoing a view voiced by many others who are refusing to leave the square until all the demands of their revolution have been met.
In 1991, in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, then-President George H.W. Bush called upon Iraqis to rise up against Saddam. The Bush administration, after “liberating” (I put it in quotes because I hardly consider the re-installation of the Sabah family in Kuwait to amount to liberation), refused going into Iraq to overthrow Saddam. Then-Defense Minister Dick Cheney, the man who later masterminded the invasion of Iraq in ’03, justified their decision not to take out Saddam on the grounds that it would lead to a quagmire. What irony! Iraqi Shi’as in the south and Kurds in the north, nevertheless rose up against the Ba’athist regime in the spring after Iraqi forces were defeated both in Kuwait and in Iraq. At the zenith of the uprising, 14 of Iraq’s 18 provinces fell to the rebels. Although the Bush administration encouraged the revolt, it stood by idly as the Ba’athist regime used its air supremacy to firebomb and raze the north and south. US forces even refused to give the rebels arms that they had seized from Saddam’s forces. In other words, they denied Iraqis Iraqi weapons to defend themselves after they were encouraged to rise up against Saddam. More than 100,000 Iraqis died. When the brutality of the crackdown became an internationally publicized mass murder, which embarrassed the US, it was only then that the US (and the UK) imposed a no-fly zone. Today, in regards to the uprising in Libya, there is again much deliberation about imposing a no-fly zone. Libyans themselves have said that they don’t want any foreign ground troops on Libyan soil and that they can lead the charge against Tripoli themselves. This is understandable because foreign troops would give credence to Qaddafi’s false accusations that the rebellion is an imperialist plot. But the no-fly zone is something else and is welcomed and I agree as to its efficacy. If the last 10 days has taught us anything it’s that Qaddafi has the same capacity to murder his own people as Saddam did, and I don’t think the world should wait until after another 100,000 die to impose the no-fly zone. There have already been reports that he has sent his fighter jets to bomb weapons caches seized by the opposition. Qaddafi wants these rebellious cities to be defenseless for what is sure to come. He has said over and over again that he will fight until the last Libyan and if there’s anything the international community can do to ensure this doesn’t happen, it is imperative that they do it. Qaddafi is a ruthless tyrant and the Libyan people are leading the charge against him. If the world can offer small but vital support like enforcing a no-fly zone to aid the rebellion, it may turn out to be very decisive and they will garner the good graces of the post-Qaddafi Libya.
If Sirte falls, then it paves the way for the battle for Tripoli. The Guardian: Groups of revolutionaries are starting to move towards western Libya in an attempt to link up with opposition militias near Tripoli, setting the stage for a final assault on the capital – perhaps within weeks.
The groups are heavily armed with military weapons, which have been looted from every army base and police headquarters east of the central oil town of Ras Lusafa. They have fought skirmishes with pro-regime forces near the Gaddafi family stronghold of Sirte, but have so far avoided intensive clashes.
Organisers in Benghazi said the groups were mostly youths and former security forces who defected during the battles that led to the fall of the city.
Ramadan Faitoura, a member of the newly formed interim government in Libya’s second city, said the groups were not part of an official push westward, although they have the support of the nascent leadership.
“We have a lot of weapons, and they have a lot of motivation,” he said. “My job is to make the connections.”
There appear to be plenty of volunteers along the way. In the town of Adjbadiya, 100 miles south of Benghazi, youths talked enthusiastically about travelling to the capital if asked to do so.
“There is nothing for us here at all,” said Khaled Ahmed in the town’s central square. “This whole place has been forgotten about for 42 years.”
A crowd quickly gathered around him, all shouting the same demands. “Gaddafi gave us nothing,” one said. ” He stole everything and the people live like this.”
“I’ll go to Tripoli tomorrow,” said another.
Like much else in this 10-day-old revolution, firm plans to take the capital have not moved past the drawing board. However, on the streets of the country’s most rebellious city there is a growing restlessness that the dramatic ousting of Gaddafi loyalists last weekend has not been met by similar success in the capital.
“That’s why the youths are going there,” he said. “They are not being told what to do and we can’t stop them. They have not been able to enter [the city of] Sirte and have to move a long way to the south to avoid the Gaddafi forces. It’s the long way there.”
Some groups have been given access to the many tonnes of stolen weapons, but the huge arsenals on open display early last week are being kept in reserve in the unlikely event of a counter-assault by Gaddafi loyalists.
The question of what to do with the weapons will be determined by a national council, which was announced today , and which has been given the task of putting a political face on the revolution. Gaddafi’s former justice minister, Mustafa Mohamed Abud Ajleil, will run the national council and a number of the dictator’s former loyalist generals will be given prominent roles.
“We want to see if we can co-ordinate between municipal councils from east and west to form an organising body,” said Salwa Bugaighis, a lawyer involved in the Benghazi coalition.
“One of the aims of the body is to help the resistance in Tripoli through military and other means,” she said.
Sirte, halfway along the coastal road to Tripoli, looms as a major obstacle for anyone travelling west from Benghazi. Regime checkpoints have been set up on the outskirts of the city and attempts by opposition groups to seize control have so far been unsuccessful.
“It has become more of a stronghold for Gaddafi than the capital,” said a member of the organising committee, which has set up in Benghazi’s court house. “Sirte could be a key to the success of all this. If it falls, there is no stopping people on the way to Tripoli.”
Sirte is a Gaddafi family stronghold that continues to enjoy tribal loyalty. However opposition groups believe that could wane if enough members of the area’s dominant tribe become convinced that Gaddafi’s attempt to remain in control is a lost cause.
Some military officers and security chiefs have defected to the opposition there, but not in nearly the same numbers as their counterparts in the east, which is now totally under opposition control.
Evacuations of foreign nationals continued in Benghazi today , with around 300 people expected to board the Royal Navy frigate HMS Cumberland, which docked mid-afternoon after an earlier run to Malta.
The warship had earlier taken 207 people to Malta and could return for a third time to collect the estimated 300 Britons left behind.
Most remaining foreigners are employed in Libya’s oil industry, which has been shut down by opposition groups, who seized refineries, rigs and wells as Gaddafi forces retreated westwards.
Some members of the national council suggested that oil production would soon be allowed to start again.
One oil worker, Canadian John Race, said he and his colleagues had turned out the lights at their desert field 400 miles south of Benghazi in order to avoid attracting attention as news of last weekend’s fighting spread. “Nothing came our way though,” he said before boarding the Cumberland. “There was no trouble.”
High seas caused by winter storms continue to foil alternative attempts to reach Tripoli, or rebel-held towns in the west, such as Musrati, through the Gulf of Sirte.
One fisherman in Benghazi’s port said two fishing boats had been sunk by missiles fired from the shore near Sirte during the past week. He also displayed a video of a scud missile on the back of a large lorry that had been seized by rebels.
A former military officer said there three other scuds had been seized – all of them up to 20 years old – and were being kept as part of a rebel armoury.
The government aims not to be a government of the east, but a temporary one until Tripoli is liberate and it can be transferred there. See the declaration here.
See the video here.
For those who would like more updates on the historic events unfolding in the Middle East/North Africa region, I’ve been updating my twitter account much more frequently. You can find it here.
His days are numbered, mark not my words, but the words of those revolutionaries in Libya. See the video here detailing how the movement in Libya is closing in on Qaddafi. Experts now say that 90% of Libya is now controlled by revolutionaries who are preparing to march on the city that matters most, the capital city of Tripoli.
Washington Post: Tunisia. Egypt. Yemen. Bahrain. And now the uprising and brutality in Libya. Could Saudi Arabia be next?
The notion of a revolution in the Saudi kingdom seems unthinkable. Yet, a Facebook page is calling for a “day of rage” protest on March 11. Prominent Saudis are urging political and social reforms. And the aging monarch, King Abdullah, has announced new economic assistance to the population, possibly to preempt any unrest.
Is the immovable Saudi regime, a linchpin of U.S. security interests in the region, actually movable?
Revolutions are contagious in the Middle East – and not just in the past few weeks. In the 1950s, when Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser swept into power, nationalist protests ignited across the region, challenging the leadership in Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and eventually Libya and beyond.
A shocked Saudi royal family watched helplessly as one of its members, directly in line to become king, claimed solidarity with the revolution and took up residence in Egypt for a few years. That prince, Talal bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, a son of the kingdom’s founder and a half-brother of the king, is now reintegrated into the Saudi elite – and on hand to remind the monarchy that it is not immune to regional revolts. “Unless problems facing Saudi Arabia are solved, what happened and is still happening in some Arab countries, including Bahrain, could spread to Saudi Arabia, even worse,” Prince Talal recently told the BBC.
The unrest in Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain and Yemen (to the kingdom’s west, east and south) plays on the Saudis’ greatest fear: encirclement. The Saudis aligned with the United States instead of colonial Britain in the early 20th century in part to defend against creeping British hegemony. During the Cold War the monarchy hunkered down against its Soviet-backed neighbors out of fear of being surrounded by communist regimes. And since the end of the Cold War, the overarching goal of Saudi foreign policy has been countering the spread of Iranian influence in all directions – Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories and Yemen.
When King Abdullah returned to Saudi Arabia last week after three months of convalescence in the United States and Morocco, one of the first meetings he took was with his ally King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain to discuss the turmoil in his tiny nation. Sunni-ruled Bahrain, less than 20 miles from Saudi Arabia’s oil- and Shiite-rich Eastern Province, has been a longtime recipient of Saudi aid. It has also been a focus of Iranian interests. The meeting was a clear signal of support for reigning monarchs, and an indication that the Saudi leadership is concerned about the events unfolding in Bahrain and throughout the region.
Further emphasizing that concern, Saudi leaders were reportedly furious that the Obama administration ultimately supported regime change in Egypt, because of the precedent it could set. Before Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak left office, the Saudis offered to compensate his faltering regime for any withdrawal of U.S. economic assistance – aiming to undermine Washington’s influence in Egypt and reduce its leverage.
As Saudi leaders look across the region, they have reason to believe that they won’t find themselves confronting revolutionaries at their own doorstep. The upheaval in Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and elsewhere is driven by popular revulsion with sclerotic, corrupt leadership. These countries do not have clear succession plans in place. They do have organized opposition movements, both inside and outside their borders, that are exploiting new means and technologies to challenge the governments. Their leaders are vulnerable to independent militaries. Their economies are weak, and educational opportunities are few.
These conditions seem to be present in Saudi Arabia, too, but the country is different in some important ways. First, its economic situation is far better. Egypt’s per capita gross domestic product is slightly more than $6,000, and Tunisia’s is closer to $9,000. For Saudi Arabia, it is roughly $24,000 and climbing (up from $9,000 a little more than a decade ago). The Saudi regime also has resources to spend on its people. Oil prices are high and rising. On Wednesday, the king announced massive social benefits packages totaling more than $35 billion and including unemployment relief, housing subsidies, funds to support study abroad and a raft of new job opportunities created by the state. Clearly the king is nervous, but he has goodies to spread around.
Poverty is real in Saudi Arabia, but higher oil prices and slowly liberalizing economic policies help mask it. When I met then-Crown Prince Abdullah in 1999, he told a group of us that unemployment was “the number one national security problem that Saudi Arabia faced.” He was right then and remains right now. According to an analysis by Banque Saudi Fransi, joblessness among Saudis under age 30 hovered around 30 percent in 2009. Still, many of the king’s key policy decisions – joining the World Trade Organization, creating new cities with more liberal values, promoting education and particularly study abroad – have sought to solve these problems. The country may be on a very slow path toward modernization, but it is not sliding backward like many others in the Middle East.
Another difference between Saudi Arabia and its neighbors is that the opposition has been largely co-opted or destroyed. For the past 10 years, the Saudi government has systematically gone after al-Qaeda cells on its territory and has rooted out suspected supporters in the military and the national guard, especially after a series of attacks in 2003. Key opposition clerics have been slowly brought under the wing of the regime. This has involved some cozying up to unsavory people, but the threat from the radical fringe is lower now than it has been in the recent past. And the Saudis have been quite clever about convincing the country’s liberal elites that the regime is their best hope for a successful future.
The loyalty of the security services is always an important predictor of a regime’s stability, and here the Saudis again have reason for some confidence. Senior members of the royal family and their sons are in control of all the security forces – the military, the national guard and the religious police. They will survive or fall together. There can be no equivalent to the Egyptian military taking over as a credible, independent institution. In Saudi Arabia, the government has a monopoly on violence. Indeed, the Saudis are taking no chances and have arrested people trying to establish a new political party calling for greater democracy and protections for human rights.
Finally, a succession plan is in place. Saudi Arabia has had five monarchs in the past six decades, since the death of its founder. There is not a succession vacuum as there was in Egypt and Tunisia. Many Saudis may not like Prince Nayaf, the interior minister, but they know he is likely to follow King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan on the throne. And there is a process, if somewhat opaque, for choosing the king after him.
The United States has a great deal at stake in Saudi Arabia, though Americans often look at the Saudis with distaste. As one senior Saudi government official once asked me: “What does the United States share with a country where women can’t drive, the Koran is the constitution and beheadings are commonplace?” It’s a tough question, but the answer, quite simply, is geopolitics – and that we know and like Saudi’s U.S.-educated liberal elites.
The Saudis have been helpful to us. They are reasonably peaceful stalwarts. They don’t attack their neighbors, although they do try to influence them, often by funding allies in local competitions for power. They are generally committed to reasonable oil prices. For example, although their oil is not a direct substitute for Libyan sweet crude, the Saudis have offered to increase their supply to offset any reduction in Libyan production due to the violence there. We work closely with them on counterterrorism operations. And the Saudis are a counterbalance to Iran. We disagree on the Israel-Palestinian issue, but we don’t let it get in the way of other key interests.
Washington does not want the Saudi monarchy to fall. The Obama administration would like it to change over time and should encourage a better system of governance with more representation and liberal policies and laws. But revolutions aren’t necessarily going to help those we hope will win.
It is dangerous business to predict events in the Middle East, especially in times of regional crisis. It’s hard to block out flashbacks of President Jimmy Carter’s 1977 New Year’s Eve statement that Iran under the shah was an island of stability in a troubled region – only months before that stability was shattered. Still, the key components of rapid, massive, revolutionary change are not present in Saudi Arabia. At least, not yet.
Rachel Bronson is the author of “Thicker Than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia” and is the vice president of programs and studies at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
Obama should apply the same standard to allies in the region that are clinging to power via the use of violence against their people, i.e. Bahrain and Yemen.When it came to Egypt, the Obama Administration came out more forcefully only as the end drew near. In other words, when Mubarak’s demise was inevitable, the US took the side of the protesters. In terms of Libya, Obama has come out against Qaddafi early, but it’s safe to say that the administration is quicker to marginalize Qaddafi because he’s not a stalwart American ally. If Obama meant what he says here, then he’d apply that same standard to Bahrain, home to America’s 5th fleet, the cornerstone of American naval presence in the Persian Gulf, especially since security forces there have also used violence against peaceful protesters: US President Barack Obama has said that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has lost his legitimacy to rule and urged him to step down from power immediately. “When a leader’s only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now,” the White House said in a statement, summarising their telephone conversation.
al-Jazeera: There are reports of Egyptian army using force to disperse activists gathered at Cairo’s Tahrir Square to demand the removal of Hosni Mubarak loyalists from the interim cabinet.
Egyptian soldiers fired in the air and used batons in the early hours of Saturday to disperse the crowd, protesters said.
Thousands had gathered in the Tahrir Square to celebrate two weeks since Mubarak’s removal and remind the country’s new rulers, who have promised to guard against “counter revolution” of the people’s power.
Activists urged the military, who had promised there would be “no return to the past” of the Mubarak era, to overhaul the cabinet and install a team of technocrats.
But after midnight, protesters said the military fired in the air, shut off the light from lampposts, and moved in on protesters to force them to leave the square.
“Military police used batons and tasers to hit the protesters,” Ahmed Bahgat, one of the protesters, told Reuters by telephone. “The military is once again using force. But the protesters have not responded.”
Protesters left the main centre but many had gathered in surrounding streets, another protester, Mohamed Emad, said.
Witnesses said they saw several protesters fall to the ground but it was not clear if they were wounded or how seriously.
“I am one of thousands of people who stood their ground after the army started dispersing the protesters, shooting live bullets into the air to scare them,” said protester Ashraf Omar.
Arrests
The army officers who moved in on protesters in Tahrir, donned black masks to cover their faces to avoid being identified by protesters, Omar said.
Military busses were parked in the square to take in protesters that were caught, Mohamed Aswany, one protester who had decided to stage a sit-in, told Reuters by telephone.
Protesters were heard yelling and shouting as they were chased down side streets to Tahrir.
“It is a cat and mouse chase between the army and the people,” Omar said in dismay. “There is no more unity between the people and the army.”
“They were using tasers and sticks to beat us without any control. I thought things would change. I wanted to give the government a chance but there is no hope with this regime,” Omar said. “There is no use.”
“I am back on the street. I either live with dignity or I die here.”
Protesters say they want the resignation of the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, the immediate release of political prisoners and the issuing of a general amnesty.
NPR: Â Eastern Libya is now completely under the control of forces loyal to the rebellion against President Moammar Gadhafi. Libyan army troops that have defected to join the pro-democracy rebels are trying to organize an offensive against the regime, according to senior military commanders in Benghazi, the birthplace of the uprising.
The force in Benghazi being hailed as the “new Libyan army” loads boxes of tank shells onto flatbed trucks that will take them to a warehouse for storage. Soldiers that once worked for Gadhafi are trying to gather up as much of their looted arsenal as they can for an offensive against the Libyan leader’s stronghold in the capital, Tripoli.
In a bustling complex that is the center of the rebel military operations in Benghazi, a senior member of a newly formed military council says that small groups of rebel soldiers have been dispatched to infiltrate the capital. The roads to Tripoli from the east are still largely controlled by pro-Gadhafi forces, he says, and small bands of soldiers attract less attention.
Col. Tarek Saad Hussein says the aim is to take Tripoli. But the obstacle right now is the city of Sirte, Gadhafi’s hometown about halfway from Benghazi to the capital. It’s heavily reinforced, he says.
The rebels also are trying to pinpoint Gadhafi’s location. Hussein says they have information that he is moving from house to house.
In a phone interview from the town of Tobruk, west of Benghazi, another defector from Gadhafi’s army, Gen. Suleiman Mahmoud, says that the rebel aim is to bolster beleaguered pro-democracy forces in Tripoli. He said hundreds of young men are volunteering to go fight there.
What’s not clear is how unified the fractured military command is, and what kind of effective fighting force can be assembled. Tarek and Mahmoud, for example, are not coordinating their efforts.
Setting Up A Local Authority
At an office in downtown Benghazi, dozens of men are lining up and signing up to help, writing their names and contact details on a register.
People in the east feel flush with the success of their revolution, and they say they want to help liberate Tripoli.
Cpl. Akram Akkaza, another defector, is helping with the recruits. “We have opened the doors to new volunteers to unite and free all of Libya,” he says.
The military isn’t the only one organizing. The Libyan revolution is only a week old, but in eastern Libya, where the state apparatus has completely collapsed, people are setting up a local authority.
Benghazi has formed committees to oversee food distribution, services, humanitarian aid and garbage collection. A central council that oversees all the groups in Benghazi is coordinating with the leadership in other cities in the region.
The Horrors Of The Past
Despite the brutal crackdown in Benghazi, the streets now are calm. Some banks have reopened, and there is little evidence of widespread destruction — except at the main military base.
As men dance and chant on a tank, around them are destroyed and looted buildings. The last pro-Gadhafi forces in the city were holed up here until a few days ago. Hundreds of Benghazi residents came Thursday to celebrate the victory.
Jamal Mohammed Falah, 40, was among them. He says he lived his entire life under Gadhafi’s rule and wanted to show his son that a better leadership will be coming to Libya.
The horrors of the past one were on full display in the army base, though.
At first using shovels, and then with a giant digger, men hunted for underground secret prisons, where they suspect people were either detained or buried. One underground area had blood smeared on the floor. Young men said they had discovered soldiers who were being held for refusing to fire on protesters. It was impossible to confirm their account. But they treated the dank cave like a shrine.
Such was the frenzy and fear at the base that people kept shouting out that they could hear voices echoing from underneath the ground. No one was discovered Thursday, though.
Jamal el Kour was watching the scene. A member of the banned Muslim Brotherhood who was once imprisoned, he cried as he watched people digging.
“I’m just … imagining myself that I’m one of them,” he says. “It’s something unbelievable. No human can describe this.”
What happened under this regime can never be forgiven; Libyans will be free or die trying, he says.
More and more cities have fallen to the opposition. Dozens of regime officials and diplomats have resigned in protest of Qaddafi’s crackdown. Generals and soldiers have defected to the people. Indeed, fighter pilots ordered to fire on the people have refused with a couple flying their planes overseas in defiance. Reports indicate that he’s bringing in mercenaries to do what his Libyan soldiers won’t. He’s holed up in his stronghold in Tripoli refusing to leave and pledging to fight until “the last man.” Towns closer and closer to Tripoli are falling to the protesters. Some analysts are expecting a bloody showdown in Tripoli. A couple of my friends predict that his own generals will murder him to prevent a bloodbath. This would have a major psychological impact for other tyrants and it could contrast with those like Ben Ali who fled by airplane. Make no mistake about it, should he die at the hands of his own generals or from his own people storming his residence, it would send a icy chill down the spines of all the dictators of the region who stubbornly cling onto power in the face of a concerted protest movement. Furthermore, if Qaddafi, one of the most senile and notorious dictators of the Arab and Muslim world, falls from power, it would be give an immeasurable boost to the wider protest movement gripping the region.
I hate being quoted because journalists often do such a terrible job of correctly conveying the sentiment, sometimes even taking things out of context, but I’m happy with The Michigan Review for quoting me properly: “While the events unfolded, the Obama administration and the State Department tried to find the right diplomatic tone. However, reaction to the uprisings hasn’t really shown a great shift in U.S. Foreign Policy according to Pouya Alimagham ‘the real shift came after the first gulf war when the U.S. established a permanent military presence in the region.’ Alimagham believes that U.S. policy had become more aggressive in the region since then and leading to the latest Iraq war. ‘But,’ he said, ‘the country [the US] learned something from the 1979 Iranian Revolution and as a result did not hold strong in their support of Mubarak in order to preserve the Egyptian military—and through it—maintain ties with the future order.’ It remains to be seen whether any of these other protests will amount to any significant change, but because “most regimes are loathed and despised by their people,” said Alimagham, it is expected that they [the protests] will continue.”
