Although the intervention in Libya has had some positive effects on the country it finds itself in a humanitarian crisis. Impunity and crimes against humanity occur, many people are displaced and conflict has spilled over to neighbouring countries. A more developed and broader humanitarian intervention in Libya is required

The escalation of regime violence is not a response to the rise of an armed opposition, but the reaction of the Assad regime to a popular uprising that has demonstrated remarkable resilience. Without a credible threat, ‘Weapons vs. Negotiations’ is a false choice.

Also in this oS Analysis debate:
Mariano Aguirre, on why force would intensify the conflict. Read Mariano Aguirre’s response to this critique, and Robert Matthews on the decades-long consequences of militarization.

It is a long road from an initial uprising to something that can be called a successful revolution. So far in the Arab region, only Tunisia has met even the minimum criteria of revolutionary success. And although there is increasing talk of a ‘Turkish’ or ‘Indonesian’ model combining a pious society with a democratic state, the region as a whole is stuck in a phase of fragile pacts and illiberal renewal

Sports provide a rare space and North-South bridging opportunity for increased interaction between the Kurdish and Arab citizens of Iraq. 

Violence in Iraq is not a throw-back to some more ‘primitive’ past, driven by dark passions dredged up from history.  On the contrary, it has a logic and a constitutive power of its own fully in line with the contemporary experiences that Iraqis have undergone both before and after 2003. Moreover, it seems to be regarded by those in power as a good deal less troubling than public accountability.