Even as the United States military quietly prepares for possible action against the Gaddafi regime, the violence of rulers in Tripoli and Manama promises to stall the Arab democratic wave of 2011.
How should the London School of Economics have handled its Libyan connections? Fred Halliday strongly opposed engagement, while David Held, Co-Director of LSE Global Governance, has been a major supporter. Is this shown to have been naïve or complicit? No - a risk worth taking, argues the author
If major western capitals reach a consensus with the Arab world to intervene in Libya, Tehran may well perceive this as a threat against its own survival.
The media and politicians have done Iraq a great disservice by highlighting the overt sectarian identity of the oppressor and the oppressed. It must not make this same mistake with Bahrain.
There are many different strands to the protest under way in Yemen, including old and new grievances, and signs that some of them are coming together.
The military balance of Libya’s domestic conflict is raising debate about external intervention. But the strategy of the Gaddafi regime is also crucial to what happens next.
Politicians and public need to address the moral argument around the use of force, encompassing the humanitarian and democratic arguments deployed in favour of intervention balanced against risk aversion and moral objections.
The military-political deadlock in Libya between supporters and opponents of the Gaddafi regime leaves a pervasive uncertainty over the country’s future. But even greater challenges will follow this conflict, says Alison Pargeter.
The crisis in Libya is confronting the United States with a new awareness of its military and political constraints, says Godfrey Hodgson.
Prominent neo-conservatives associated with the G.W.Bush administration have written to President Obama calling for a US-led Nato to develop plans to command Libyan waters and air space. Will this protect the Libyan people?
With its oil reserves measured in years rather than decades and facing the imminent yet difficult transition to a post-oil economy, Bahrainis simply cannot afford another wasted ten-year cycle of partial reform and renewed repression. Major unrest in the Gulf States is altering their self-projecti
International organisations will never regain popular legitimacy if they continue their inaction over Libya. Intervention must be measured so as not to exacerbate the situation, but inaction is the worst course of all.
