Tunesia, Egyt and now Yemen: a domino effect in the Middle East?

I stand by my previous comment; Obama is poor at communicating where he stands on many issues, and it's not restricted to the Middle East.

It's a no-brainer that President Barack Obama should do something to help the Libyan protesters bring down the monstrous regime of Muammar Qaddafi. The tough question is what.

To elaborate on this point: What actions would help, what actions might hurt, and, perhaps most important, what actions can be effectively sustained? Qaddafi, after all, has hung on to power for 42 years; he might not tumble with one quick push.

so Qaddafi says he wants to die in Libya

I would agree with that, Georgeob. Things move so fast now. The notion that the UN or the Arab League or any world leader can effectively do anything seems naive.
I read tonight the notion that Gaddafi may set fire to Libyan oil fields and open up the prisons on his way out. Plausible, I guess, but what could be done to prevent that? By whom?

I'm assuming the Africans he brought in were muslims, at least their tactics seem to have taken a page out of the attrocities in sudan et al, like cutting hands off the demonstrators.

By Jim Hoagland
Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Hang in there, man.

Earlier this month, I wrote an open letter urging the Egyptian president to yield power and go quietly. But Brother Colonel - as you styled yourself when I first met you in 1973 - you are no Hosni Mubarak. You vow to go down in flames. Okay. That would be a fitting end for the criminal you have become.


Of course, no one should wish for more bloodshed as the price for your removal. But neither can we wish for you to get another giant plea bargain that leaves you in power. That happened in 2003, when you were welcomed into the world's leadership club after giving up development of chemical and nuclear weapons. You were forgiven the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland; the cold-blooded murder of Libyan dissident Mansour Kikhia; and a long career of other terrorist actions.

The Libyan people toppling you would solidify the important psychological transformation this year's revolutionary wave is sparking in the Arab world. It is a welcome change: Arab self-identity has for decades been rooted in defeat, bitterness and impotence born out of the military disasters of 1948 and 1967. Regimes such as yours are the products and beneficiaries of those Israeli victories. You fed on the pessimism and fatalism of people who saw themselves as history's losers.

As brave Arab patriots battle to grab control of their lives, that image can be buried. Their success would contribute mightily to the chances for finally ending the Israeli-Arab conflict - if the next generation of Arab leaders and Israel act wisely and with all deliberate speed.

Your demise will help. Your record of international criminal activity is, after all, on par with that of Saddam Hussein (who did not take my advice to get out of town in March 2003, to his ultimate regret).

Britain sold Libya more than $6 million in ammunition, including riot-control ammo, in the third quarter of 2010 alone—a chapter in shame that Prime Minister David Cameron (who recently flew to Egypt to strike a relationship with the nascent regime there) might wish to rectify.