Roundup: Media's Take

Maurizio Molinari: How Muammar al-Qaddafi Hoodwinked Italy for Decades

[Maurizio Molinari is the U.S. correspondent of La Stampa.] In each of my three conversations with Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi throughout the 1990s, one theme prevailed: the Libyan leader's contempt for my country. Listening to his verbose condemnation of Italian colonialism was the price I paid to ask my own questions -- no matter the supposed topic of the interview. In one encounter, in the middle of the night under a tent in the Sirte desert, he bemoaned Libya's exploitation at Itali

Laura Ling: North Korea: A Nation in the Dark

[Laura Ling is host of the documentary series "E! Investigates." She is the coauthor of "Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring Her Home."] Around the world, authoritarian regimes have tried to keep their citizens from hearing news of the protests raging throughout the Middle East and in their own countries. Some have tried shutting down cellphone and Internet service, but that has only sparked new flames of anger a

Khaled Mattawa: Rising to Shake off the Fear in Libya

[Khaled Mattawa is a poet and a professor of creative writing at the University of Michigan. His latest book of poetry is "Tocqueville."] ...Having grown tired of exile, I began to visit home again starting in 2000. The dictator's style then consisted mainly of African robes made of fabrics fit for movie scenes set in cheap bordellos. Amid the talk of reforms and a return to the international fold, his absurd attire and demeanor seemed to mock all that was being said aroun

Kal Raustiala: Why Diplomats Have Diplomatic Immunity

[Kal Raustiala is professor of law and director of the Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA.] For centuries nations have been trading envoys. Ambassadors, and the embassies they command, have long been treated as tiny outposts of the sending state — a chunk of territory that figuratively is taken from one state and dropped into another. And just as one state cannot invade or exercise legal jurisdiction within the territory of another, it follows that the embassy and amb

David Brooks: Huntington’s Clash Revisited

[David Brooks is a columnist for the NYT.] Samuel Huntington was one of America’s greatest political scientists. In 1993, he published a sensational essay in Foreign Affairs called “The Clash of Civilizations?” The essay, which became a book, argued that the post-cold war would be marked by civilizational conflict. Human beings, Huntington wrote, are divided along cultural lines — Western, Islamic, Hindu and so on. There is no universal civilization. Instead, there are

Michael Lind: How Liberalism Can Survive the Collapse of Union Power

[Michael Lind is Policy Director of the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation and is the author of "The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution."] In last week’s column, I argued that, because unions are likely to play an even smaller role in American politics and policy than they do today, progressives must come up with other strategies for mobilizing ordinary workers and voters to achieve goals like higher wages and a

Tom Parfitt: The Secret History of Beslan

[Tom Parfitt is a fellow of the London-based Royal Geographical Society and a former public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. His trip is supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.] VLADIKAVKAZ and BESLAN, Russia — In these sleepy towns in the Russian republic of North Ossetia, it's no surprise that fury against the Islamist militants who plague the North Caucasus runs deep. Beslan is, of course, the infamous site of the most savage and terrifying

Jonathan Freedland: Antisemitism: The Hatred That Refuses to Go Away

[Jonathan Freedland writes a weekly column for the Guardian.] If, as the old saw has it, antisemitism is a light sleeper, then it has just woken up with a start. In the space of a few days, a range of assorted eminences have dropped their guard and given voice to the Jew-hating demons in their heads. So far only John Galliano has paid with his job, the "transgressive" designer dropped by fashion house Dior after delivering a drunken rant in a Paris bar to two

Michael T. Klare: The Collapse of the Old Oil Order

[Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, a TomDispatch regular, and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet.]Whatever the outcome of the protests, uprisings, and rebellions now sweeping the Middle East, one thing is guaranteed: the world of oil will be permanently transformed.  Consider everything that’s now happening as just the first tremor of an oilquake that will shake our world to its core. For a ce

Andrew C. McCarthy: The Libyan People are No More Our Ally than Qaddafi

[Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.] ...Yes, yes, I know: We are not supposed to look at Libyans now as they appeared the last time we took notice: a cheering throng greeting Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie terrorist, whom the Obama administration was cajoled into ignoring when the Brits orchestrated his release from jail to appease our spot-shorn leopa

Ed Kilgore: The Long-Buried Liberal History of Newt Gingrich

[Ed Kilgore is a special correspondent for The New Republic.] After many feints in this direction dating back to 1996, Newt Gingrich seems to be finally preparing a run for president. Generally, he is not being taken as seriously as potential candidates like Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee—or even D.C. insider heartthrobs such as Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, and Chris Christie. I agree with this assessment of Gingrich’s potential, to an extent; he’s the opposite of a fr

Niels Annen: Echoes of the Soviet Surge

[Niels Annen is a nonresident fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He is a former member of the German Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee.] The war in Afghanistan is not going well. A young president wants to pull out, but is boxed in by his generals. In Kabul, a corrupt, nominally democratic leader is losing his grip on power. A surge of ground troops has begun. The year is 1985. It was 25 years ago that the Soviet Union experienced the bloodie

Daniel Serwer: Behind Iraq's Protests, a Call for Better Democracy

[Daniel Serwer is a scholar at the Middle East Institute and a professorial lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He blogs at www.peacefare.net.] The mood in Iraq has shifted with the uprisings across the Arab world. Frustration over jobs, corruption and services inspired Iraqis to take to the streets last Friday and over the weekend, precipitating the resignations of at least three provincial governors and pro

Gail Collins: Girls and Boys Together

[Gail Collins is a columnist for the NYT.] In honor of Women’s History Month, President Obama ordered up the first report on the status of American women since the one Eleanor Roosevelt prepared for John F. Kennedy. It’s chock full of interesting bits of information. For instance, did you know that the median marriage age for college-educated women is 30? I should have figured that out because I can barely think of a single college-educated woman under the age of 30 who

Mohammad al-Asfar: Libya’s Patient Revolutionaries

[Mohammad al-Asfar is a novelist. This essay was translated by Ghenwa Hayek from the Arabic.] The revolution in my country is aflame, and has achieved considerable success, internally and internationally. Each time a city is liberated, makeshift institutions to manage everyday life and defend freedom arise, and more members of the former regime’s leadership, whether they are political, cultural or business figures, join in. Our flag is no longer a solid green field; the

Olivier Roy: End of the old Arab strongman

[Olivier Roy is professor of social and political theory at the European University Institute in Florence. His most recent book is "Holy Ignorance: When Religion and Culture Part Ways".] As revolt spreads in the Middle East, the young people who launched the protest movement are being joined by ever-growing numbers of demonstrators. This prompts one to ask: where will it end and what will the geostrategic consequences be? It would be presumptuous to claim to have perfect a

Hossam el-Hamalawy: Egypt's revolution has been 10 years in the making

[Hossam el-Hamalawy is an Egyptian journalist from Cairo. He blogs at arabawy.org.] In the 1990s, one could only whisper Hosni Mubarak's name. Political talk or jokes were avoided in phone calls. This year, millions of Egyptians fought for 18 days against their ageing tyrant, braving the police troops firing teargas, rubber bullets and live ammunition. People in Egypt have lost their fear, but it did not happen overnight. The Egyptian revolution, rather than coming out of the blue o

Robert Fisk: The historical narrative that lies beneath the Gaddafi rebellion

[Robert Fisk is The Independent's award-winning Middle East correspondent.] Poor old Libyans. After 42 years of Gaddafi, the spirit of resistance did not burn so strongly. The intellectual heart of Libya had fled abroad. Libyans have always opposed foreign occupiers just as the Algerians and the Egyptians and the Yemenis have done – but their Beloved Leader has always presented himself as a fellow resister rather than a dictator. Hence in his long self-parody of a speec

Seumas Milne: Intervention in Libya would poison the Arab revolution

[Seumas Milne is a Guardian columnist and associate editor.] It's as if the bloodbaths of Iraq and Afghanistan had been a bad dream. The liberal interventionists are back. As insurrection and repression has split Libya in two and the death toll has mounted, the old Bush-and-Blair battle-cries have returned to haunt us. The same western leaders who happily armed and did business with the Gaddafi regime until a fortnight ago have now slapped sanctions on the discarded aut

Michael Freund: This is not 1776 ... Jeffersonian-style democracy isn’t about to flourish throughout the region

[Michael Freund writes a syndicated column for the Jerusalem Post.] As the revolt against tyranny spreads across the Middle East, shaking the very foundations of the Arab political order, it appears as if we are at the doorstep of a new and uncharted world. Old certainties, like the sands of Arabia, are rapidly being swept away, leaving Israel and the West peering into a potential vacuum of insecurity and doubt. The thought of the Muslim Brotherhood rising