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

Oh--I forgot.. A "red mist" is a gentleman's club version of getting your knickers in a twist.

I'm headed there now with wife, daughter, son-in-law & grandkids. We will have a good time.

• Even bigger headaches are arising in the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Several top players from past administrations report that the Saudis are hugely angry about Obama's treatment of Egypt's ex-President Hosni Mubarak. "He was your best friend in the region for more than 30 years, doing everything you asked," the Saudi argument goes, "but a week after he got into trouble, you threw him under the bus rather than working out a graceful exit. How can we now trust you?"

2) if Obama has a Middle East policy no one knows what the **** it is.

"He was your best friend in the region for more than 30 years, doing everything you asked," the Saudi argument goes, "but a week after he got into trouble, you threw him under the bus rather than working out a graceful exit. How can we now trust you?"

Upon taking office almost first on his to-do list was to take up the job of chief American Apologizer

And RAF pilots have come home with their bombs because they didn't want to risk hurting any civilians.

Obama does not care about the world in general and the Mid East in particular.

That the world community has intervened in Libya but not in say, Yemen and Bahrain, has raised cries of hypocrisy. These charges are largely deserved. It is worth noting, however, that nowhere else in the Arab world where there have been widespread protests has the regime consistently responded with such massive brutality as in Libya. Yemen, with the sniper massacre of crowds on Friday, is moving in that direction, but Qaddafi has likely killed thousands since February 17, not just dozens.

From February 17, a peaceful protest movement broke out throughout Libya. Civilian crowds gathered without violence downtown, in Benghazi, Tobruk, Dirna, Zawiya, Zuara and even in the outskirts of Tripoli as in the working class town of Tajoura. City notables and military men in the east of the country formed a provisional government. Many diplomats declared for the provisional government, as did many officers and even cabinet members.

The Qaddafi regime responded with brutal violence to these non-violent protests. Early on, live fire was used against protesters in Tripoli itself. Last week, convoys of tanks rolled into Zawiya, supported by heavy artillery, firing on civilian crowds and on civilian apartment buildings. The tanks occupied the city center, and there are reports of a mass grave of the protesters. They were just protesters. They were easily defeated because they did not know, and most of them still do not know, how to handle a weapon. There were large numbers of self-inflicted gunshot wounds in the rebel ranks.

A reporter on the scene in Zawiya spoke of ‘large numbers of deaths’ and a ‘massacre.’ (video on the site)

The Zawiya scenario was repeated, in Zuara to its west, and in Misrata to its east (Misrata, a city of 600,000 and Libya’s third largest, appears to have fallen to Qaddafi this weekend, with his tanks occupying the city center in a dreary repetition of the death and destruction at Zawiya earlier).

Libya began as a protest. Some of the protesters (apparently only a few thousand) were turned into armed rebels as they sought to defend themselves. Qaddafi responded to the protest movement by firing tank and artillery shells at the protesters and at infrastructure in the rebel cities. Many are without water and electricity, creating a humanitarian crisis.

The BBC's Kevin Connolly, in the rebel-held city of Tobruk, says it is not clear if the allies can attack Col Gaddafi's troops operating in the centre of Misrata without harming the very civilians they have come to save.

A rebel spokesman told Reuters news agency that pro-Gaddafi forces were bringing civilians to Misrata from outlying areas to deter further allied strikes.

On Monday Britain said it had called off an air raid during the night because civilians were spotted near the target area. The UK defence ministry did not say where the planned target had been.

Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, who supported the UN resolution, on Sunday criticised the severity of the bombardment.

"What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians," he said.

But on Monday, in a joint news conference with visiting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in Cairo, Mr Moussa played down any differences within the coalition. "We are all united on the issue of protecting civilians," he said.

Both he and Mr Ban stressed that Arab League support was a key factor in securing Security Council backing for the UN resolution.

Yemen, with the sniper massacre of crowds on Friday, is moving in that direction, but Qaddafi has likely killed thousands since February 17, not just dozens.