By Gideon Rachman
In retrospect, it was all desperately naive.
Remember all that excitement about the Facebook revolution? The image of hip young Egyptians, organising through social networking sites, to overthrow a military dictator was irresistible to many in the west. We were down with the kids in Tahrir. They were using our ideas and our gadgets to overthrow a crusty old dictator. Bliss was it on that dawn to be watching CNN.
Each week World Weekly will be focusing on some of the major international political stories that are making the headlines – drawing upon the FT’s team of foreign correspondents and international analysts, to make sense of world events
Presented by Gideon Rachman
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Turmoil in the Middle East and what Putin’s return means for the West Nov 24, 2011 – 5:21 pm
FT correspondents join Gideon Rachman to discuss the continuing turmoil in Egypt and Syria, and what the return of Vladimir Putin means for Russia’s relationship with the West.
Just a couple of months ago, the idea of foreign military intervention in Syria was regarded as all but unthinkable. But now important people are indeed thinking – and talking – about it. The latest is Alain Juppe, the French foreign minister, who has spoken of the idea of establishing “humanitarian zones” to protect civilians. This sounds like a strictly limited idea. But, as the Chinese and Russians would swiftly remind us, the Libyan war started as a limited intervention to protect civilians – and morphed into regime change.
Protesters clash with riot police near Tahrir Square. Photo AFP/Getty
Welcome to our live blog of the turmoil in the Middle East. Written by John Aglionby and Tom Burgis on the news desk in London and with contributions from correspondents around the world. All times are GMT.
18.52 That brings us to the end of our live coverage of the Middle East today. See FT.com through the night for updates from Tahrir Square and analysis of what Saleh’s promise to depart means for Yemen. We’ll leave you with this exclusive analysis on the political implications of today’s report into abuses by Bahrain’s security forces from Jane Kinninmont, senior research fellow in the Middle East and North Africa programme at the Chatham House think-tank (emphasis ours).
Can the army and the politicians stop a second revolution in Egypt? The images from Tahrir square suggest we are back to February, except this time the protestors’ demand is to get rid of the ruling military council which, despite having the run the country with shocking incompetence this year, has been negotiating a role for itself after it hands over power to civilians.
In recent years Iran has reacted to most UN inspectors’ reports with relief. Even critical assessments and condemnations of its lack of cooperation were met with delusional statements insisting that so long as the International Atomic Energy Association found no evidence of a weapons dimension to the nuclear programme Tehran was in the clear.
With foreign intervention in Libya now formally over, after the UN vote yesterday, military strategists and diplomats are trying to make sense of the conflict. Here in Washington, there is a feeling that it was a “close run thing” (as Wellington once said of Waterloo). Military victories often take on the aura of inevitablity, after the event, but US officials are acutely aware how stretched the Nato alliance was by the Libyan war.
Here’s the problem with the Arab League. A ministerial delegation is due in Syria today to convince Bashar al-Assad’s regime to stop killing protestors demanding the president’s ouster, and agree to an Arab reconciliation plan.
Qatar, the exceedingly wealthy autocracy which has emerged as the unlikely champion of the oppressed across the Arab world, is leading the delegation, despite initial grumbles from Damascus. But the six-member mission also includes Egypt, Oman, Algeria and Yemen. Right, Yemen, where the government has been denounced by many of its fellow Arab states for rejecting a Gulf plan to transfer power away from the president, Ali Abdallah Saleh.
Muammer Gaddafi’s end was destined to be bloody. A few months ago, when the rebels were struggling and their western backers were losing patience, he could have saved his skin and that of his children and fled into exile, with the consent of his Libyan opponents and their western backers.
Even the indictment by the International Criminal Court seemed, at least for a while, open for some compromise.
Gilad Shalit crossed into Egypt’s Sinai peninsula this morning at the start of a highly emotional day of prisoner exchanges between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas. The 25-year-old soldier captured five years ago by Hamas will be receiving a hero’s welcome in Israel, and Palestinians will celebrate the return of 477 prisoners, the first batch in the 1,000-to-one exchange.
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