Mideast news brief: France and Britain demand stronger NATO action

Yemeni anti-regime protesters shout slogans during a demonstration to demand the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Sanaa, on April 11, 2011, as the Yemen anti-regime protest movement rejected a proposal from mediating Gulf states that Saleh should pass power to his deputy (MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images).

Arguments & Analysis 

‘Qatar and the Arab Spring’ (Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Open Democracy)
“With so much of Qatar’s global reach dependent on a sophisticated national marketing strategy, recent developments in the UAE offer a troubling portent of challenges still to come. In Abu Dhabi, more than 130 artists from around the world last week announced a plan to boycott the new Frank Gehry-designed Guggenheim museum unless conditions for foreign labourers at the construction site are improved. This was followed by the arrest of three human rights and democracy activists, including Nasser bin Ghaith, a professor of economics at the Abu Dhabi campus of the Sorbonne University. Both developments are acutely embarrassing for the prestigious western institutions that bought into the Abu Dhabi dream, and leave them facing questions about the nature of their continuing involvement with authoritarian regimes. With Qatar’s booming economy so dependent on foreign labourers, a great many of whom live below the poverty line in a land of such ostentatious wealth, any spotlight might reveal unpalatable results, particularly with world attention focusing so closely on Qatar following the World Cup bid and its support for the Arab Spring elsewhere.”

‘Should we negotiate with Qaddafi?’ (Daniel Serwer, The Atlantic)

“It appears doubtful that the AU delegation will take the kind of hard line required to get Qaddafi to leave Libya. It is much more likely that it will come back with a vague, wishy-washy offer from Qaddafi that sounds good on paper but enables him and his sons to remain in Tripoli making all sorts of trouble and preventing transition to a new, more representative regime. We should not be tempted. Compromised conclusions to NATO air wars in Bosnia and in Kosovo have proven frighteningly difficult and expensive to implement. Nor should we be tempted to put boots on the ground, as we know from Iraq and Afghanistan how painful that can be. A satisfactory outcome in Libya will be one that vindicates Responsibility to Protect and allows the Americans to stand aside from the post-war reconstruction and leave it to the Europeans, whose energy interests give them motive and means to be helpful to the New Libya.”

‘Stage two of the Egyptian revolution’ (Paul Pillar, The National Interest)

“Now Egypt is moving into the second stage of its latest revolution. Dissatisfaction and impatience with the military are showing up in the form of more protests in the streets, and the military is using more force to retain order. Not just Egyptians but outsiders will have to give this revolution renewed attention, notwithstanding the distractions next door in Libya and elsewhere in the region. Despite the enormous attention that was given to the ouster of Hosni Mubarak during his final fortnight in office (and the alarm this change of leadership, and the U.S. posture toward it, caused the rulers of Saudi Arabia), many will come to ask whether that change was really much of a revolution at all. Although Mubarak had not worn his uniform for years, it will occur to many that this former bomber pilot and air force chief was only the latest head of a continuing political order that began with a military coup in 1952. In some ways his departure seems more like a change of command than a revolution.”