The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Not all the middle east is pleased

    By Flavius on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 4:42pm |

    by the UN decision on Libya. Turkey's bitter opposition has effectively side lined NATO.

    See Juan Cole today in particular comment from Howard Eissenstat 

     

     

    http://www.juancole.com

    Comments

    Germany's refusal to take part had already ruled out any formal NATO role in the no-fly zone. Which won't stop the U.K., France, the U.S. and a handful of other countries.

    As for what Eissenstat has to say, I share Turkey's concerns about foreign intervention in Libya. The list of those lining up to support the pro-democracy rebels consists largely of ex-colonialists, U.S. puppets and autocratic despots (some of whom are simultaneously carrying out exactly the kind of suppression Gaddafi is blamed for). I suspect there's popular ambivalence, distrust and a sense of hypocrisy throughout the Arab world.

    I'm happy to see another dictator go and to prevent a slaughter of dissidents, but I lack any confidence in the cast of characters now riding to the rescue. Which is why I keep arguing for Egypt (now that it's a nascent democracy) to take a more active role.


    by acanuck on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 5:17pm

    I share Turkey's concerns not because of but depite they're Turkey's. At first I welcomed Erdogen's gradual chipping away at the disproportionate military/secular influence.  Now that process worries me.. . 


    by Flavius on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 9:09pm

    Given revolutionary history, pushing a newly self-liberated Egypt towards a military role at this point in the game sounds like a bad idea. Without a solid constitution in place and a build up of civil society, you could just push them into a Napoleon situation. Egyptians are only just now taking the first steps toward building a liberal government. While they may have a colonial past and their own scarred domestic relations with Muslims, Europeans are best (with Americans less so because we're already involved deeply in two conflicts) suited to take on such a role. Of course, Europeans are used to Americans doing this sort of thing.


    by Orion on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 5:12pm

    No question, the West has the most military might at hand to do the job efficiently. But France, Britain and Italy have past roles in North Africa to live down and/or financial/oil interests in Libya itself. The Arab states most cited as coalition partners are Qatar and the Emirates, both members of the Gulf Co-operation Council that just greenlighted Saudi Arabia's crackdown on Bahraini protests. So the U.S. and Canada actually come across as the most impartial, least hypocritical participants in the no-fly operation.

    To be credible, the coalition needs Arab and/or Muslim states to take part. Problem is, looking around, most are still on the despotic side of the ledger. Egypt's military would gain support among its pro-democracy activists if it moved decisively against Gaddafi, but it is playing this very cautiously. I just read that it abstained on the Arab League vote calling for a no-fly zone. On the other hand, it is reported to be "secretly" supplying the rebels with arms and ammo. That's certainly positive (given the bloodbath that their defeat would entail). Maybe Egypt will get more involved as it warms to the task.


    by acanuck on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 6:04pm

    Canuck, I left you this comment early this morning; might be a coffee rap...or not.  ;o)

    http://dagblog.com/comment/reply/9447/111002


    by we are stardust on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 6:24pm

    For a coffee rap, that's a good one. Spot on. Thanks, I would have missed it.


    by acanuck on Sun, 03/20/2011 - 12:51am

    Stardust. In the link you wrote

    When I consider Flavius’s trust that the CIA has hipped Obama to certain facts that cause him to reverse his position of support for those seeking democracy in Bahrain, for instance, it depresses me.

    Don't be depressed ..What I wrote was

    JUST FOR DISCUSSION,ASSUME YOU''RE PRESIDENT, AND ARE TOLD BY THE CIA THAT  THE BRAVE YOUNG SHIAS  CHALLENGING THE BAHRAIN MONARCHY  IF SUCCESSFUL WOULD ALLY THEMSELVES WITH IRAN AND TOGETHER  THEY WOULD NURTURE TERRORISTS WHO WOULD BLOW UP THE SEARS TOWER 


    by Flavius on Sun, 03/20/2011 - 10:38am

    I am depressed; I'm sorry I didn't mention that you were speculating.  My larger point was meant to be that you might still believe in the CIA as 'protecting us from Shias', as though young Shiites would naturally hook to Islamists, and that Iranians are violent extremists.  Remember, too, that 'our partners in peace', the Saudis, comprised most of the 9/11 highjackers.


    by we are stardust on Sun, 03/20/2011 - 11:18am

    Thanks for the apology which is accepted

     My larger point was meant to be that you might still believe in the CIA as 'protecting us from Shias',

    Nah. Don't automatically trust or distrust  all members of the CIA ; Shia,  Islamists, Iranians or any other group Well , almost any other group . As the old joke goes all generalizations are unsound, except this one.

    In particular re the Iranians my agnosticism was reinforced by a book by a couple of reporters who moved to Teheran  when Khatami was elected  to cover the birth of a new , liberal Iran - and stayed to cover its crib death at the hands of  Kamenei..Particularly ironic since Shiism differs from Sunni doctrine in deprecating the role of a supreme religious leader.

     


    by Flavius on Sun, 03/20/2011 - 12:51pm

    Book was  Answering only to God". 


    by Flavius on Sun, 03/20/2011 - 1:09pm

    Brain-Freeze, see below:


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 8:43am

    I'll see your Juan Cole, and raise one Jeffrey Goldberg (yea that Goldberg! Wink).  Goldberg is cruising around a series of Arab countries at the moment, and here's what he writes in pondering the merits of Libyan intervention:

    With preemptive apologies to my cabal of bloodthirsty neo-con warmongering Israel-firsters (happy Purim, fellas!), and with preemptive apologizes as well to those who are better informed about this than I am (I'm bouncing around a North African desert I will identify later, once I end my bouncing, and I have only intermittent connection to the Intertubes), I've been wondering just exactly why armed intervention in Libya is so urgently sought by the West, and why armed intervention in other places that are suffering from similar man-made disasters (Yemen, the Ivory Coast, and the big enchilada, Iran, to name three) is not. I would, like most reasonable people, love to see Muammar Qaddafi brought to justice for the many murders he has committed, and I would I love to see a new, democratically-inclined government installed in Libya.

    But: Do we really know who would rule Libya if Qaddafi disappeared from the scene? I met a whole bunch of anti-Qaddafi activists in Cairo last week, and they didn't fill me with good feeling about their intentions or their beliefs. Or, for that matter, their competence. I know that there are many brave people among the opposition, and I wish fervently for their success, on the theory that they can't be worse than Qaddafi. But I'm not one hundred percent behind this theory.

    And another question: Are we seeking to depose Qaddafi, who, we are informed by various American officials, has "lost his legitimacy" to rule (as if he didn't lose it when, for instance, he blew up Pam Am 103) because we just hate him more than run-of-the-mill dictators? Is it because he has committed crimes that are so unique? He's a satanic figure, of course, but he has never committed atrocities on the scale of, say Saddam Hussein, or Hafez al-Assad. Are we offended because he has launched aerial attacks against his own citizens? Of course we are, but is this really so unusual in the Middle East?

    And another question: Is the goal to remove Qaddafi from power? To limit his running room? What if Libyan rebels don't succeed in removing him from power?  How long will the West be engaged militarily in Libya? What is the strategy here? Is there a strategy? What's the plan if this settles into a standoff? 

    I think Hillary Clinton did the right thing, pushing the Obama Administration to back some sort of action (and from what little I've seen, the threat of action may have slowed down Qaddafi a bit). But when I pause to think about it, I'm actually glad for the Administration's hesitancy, and I'm glad Hillary and company (Gates probably more than anyone) have made the point that the Arabs need to own this mission. But again, what is the mission? Inquiring minds want to know.

    I apologize if this thoughts have already been circulating widely on the Web; I'm a little bit removed from the conversation at the moment. I certainly hope these questions are being asked.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/03/some-discomfiti...


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 8:40am

    I'll see your Goldberg and raise you one Auden

    From  For the Time Being. The slaughter of the innocent.  

    Herod speaks

    Civilization must be saved even if this sending for the military as I suppose it does.How dreary. Why is it that in the end civilization always has to call in these professional tidiers to whom it is all one whether it be Pythagoras or a homicidal lunatic they are are instructed to exterminate.O dear, Why couldn't this wretched infant be born somewhere else? Why can't people be sensible? I don't want to be horrid...........I've tried to be good. I brush my teeth every night.I haven't had sex for a month. I object. I'm a liberal. I want everyone to be happy . I wish I had never been born.

     


    by Flavius on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 8:53am

    I fold! :)


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 03/19/2011 - 9:04am