a thread about the civil unrest in egypt (& elsewhere in 'the region' if necessary)

I guess one thing this Libyan ceasefire does is forestall any no-fly zone.

The threat of one is what created the ceasefire

I guess one thing this Libyan ceasefire does is forestall any no-fly zone.

You'd think?

Gaddafi is reportedly still shelling and advancing in Misurata, the one major town in the west still held by rebels.

xpost Like hm says, it's a stretch to cause Gaddafi "useful". Not all Arab dictators are the same. If the US could have taken him out years ago they would have.

if only Gingrich and his crack team of CIA operatives had gotten their way...

i guess one thing the ceasfire and no-fly zone do is forestall gadaffi's forces from killing lots of people

well, lots MORE people

Which was ostensibly the point of the security council resolution.

yeah but only ostensibly right?

i guess one thing the ceasfire and no-fly zone do is forestall gadaffi's forces from killing lots of people

So Yemen next then?

Or maybe just let the Saudis handle that one too

xp - Yeah, Gaddafi is calling their bluff..."I did what you asked, what are you still doing here?"

I can only assume the Yemeni regime is banking on the rest of the world being too distracted to pay attention

xp

I don't think it was a bluff. it's more like he's challenging them to go beyond stopping the fighting to actively violating Libya's sovereignty and removing him

the french have already said bollocks to 'libyan sovereignty'

"Bluff" possibly the wrong word...what I meant was, the UN resolution talks about protecting civilians but the intent was clearly to shift the balance to the rebels, who are in a situation where a stalemate may not be much use.

Though there was a report that Egypt is starting to send arms to the rebels, so maybe the ceasefire could help them put together a more organised resistance. Who knows.

The EU foreign affairs chief, Baroness Ashton, has told Euro MPs that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi should be "sent back into the cold".
http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news17879.html

baroness ashton is a fucking amateur, a little leftover joke by the outgoing brown government

she's changed her tune, is what im saying

and in this case, what is she talking about? 'sending him into the cold' leaves libyans as they were in the 1970s and 80s, ie with a psychopathic thug running things. UN/EU/__ should make some bodies turn cold more like.

assuming the west starts seriously arming/training the rebels, I would think that would quickly tilt the scales against Ghaddaffy, no...? I mean it could be long and drawn-out and (I'm sure) brutal but dude has like no allies at this point, and his funds are frozen.

I read that he has access to funds he has stored in Tripoli

hopefully that won't be necessary. the arab league called for a no-fly zone and could be the desired neutral arbiter everyone can agree on.

Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond says he "strongly supports" the UN resolution. He tells the BBC it sends a strong message to the Libyan regime and "will concentrate minds". Asked if he supports the idea of "regime change", he says he believes "the end game" is "a new government of Libya".

Wee Alex has spoken, Gadaffi may as well get out while the goin' is good

hopefully that won't be necessary. the arab league called for a no-fly zone and could be the desired neutral arbiter everyone can agree on.

Which of the various despots, dictators and tyrants are in the Arab League? Dominated by the Saudis?

that's the joke

Ah! Maybe a winky emoticon in future?

dude has like no allies at this point

Seems to have a few in Libya though!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704360404576206992835270906.html?mod=djemalertAsianews

here's the wsj report on the egyptian arms shipments

talking speculatively here, can we say that the opinion of mideast elites is that there are despotisms, and then there a despotisms? it's like, ok sure we're tramping the dirt down in bahrain, but that's different, this guy is nuts!

saudi arabia has beef with libya going way back. he's tried to kill some of its princes or whatever. he was #teamussr and saudi arabia was... not. etc.

not really in the realm of categorical imperatives here

right, that's kind of what i meant. we here in the_west can look at this and be like, where's the logic, this shit over here is the same as that shit over there.

really wonder who is making those decisions in egypt to beef up the libyan opposition. i'm going to assume this is not some young lafayette fresh out of tahrir square. but maybe it is!

Yemen:

The security forces that had massed at the protest’s south end then began to pull back into the city center, firing tear gas as hundreds of protesters gave chase, hurling rocks. People in apartments overlooking the action tossed onions down to the protesters for them to use to relieve the effects of the tear gas.

so surreal

amazed these guys are still going

A man walked through the crowd with a microphone yelling, “Peaceful, peaceful! Don’t be afraid of the bullets!”

just... damn, dude. amazing

I wonder if part of what's playing into the_west's thinking - across the spectrum of craziness in the Middle East - is "if we just sit back, no one will owe us anything"?

(which could be "bad", obv)

xpost to DG

love that they're linking to, like, simon jenkins and peter oborne

they seem terribly confused

Oborne's all anti "the Jewsih Lobby", that seems like the sort of thing they could get behind

peter oborne thinks britain is secretly run by jews, so do they

check out the brains trust

haha

I find Tariq Ali... perplexing.

i dont see what the point of 'tony benn' is either

would love to see him denounce the UN now

Standard "it's all about oil" dogma from Stop the War. Seeing George Galloway top right is a sure sign that you should read no further.

Bahrain tore down the pearl at the center of Pearl Square in a symbolic end to the popular protests.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/world/middleeast/19bahrain.html?hp

I guess noone is speaking up for the people of Bahrain in the US State Department or elsewhere in the world's political establishment

our choices are between the Saudis and Iran. not exactly great options there.

As someone asked upthread, do we really know that the Bahrain Shiites (Shia?) will embrace the Iranian Shia or be controlled by them automatically, or is that just a probability? I recognize that the Iranian fundamentalist Shia rulers are trying to influence other countries and their people, but is it possible Shi-ites elsewhere do not want Iranian help?