The revolution sweeping across the Middle East started in Beirut shortly after the February 14, 2005, assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others. The ensuing Cedar Revolution, launched by Lebanese pro-democracy supporters, targeted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime and demanded an end to Syria’s 30 year occupation of Lebanon. The Lebanese revolution succeeded in ousting Assad’s military and intelligence officials from Lebanon and driving them back into Syria by the end of April 2005. It was an incredible moment celebrated by pro-democracy supporters throughout Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt and ignited the reform efforts we see in Syria today.

So it turns out that French fries are really freedom fries after all.

From the moment Moammar Gaddafi started his vicious military campaign against his people, French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke of confronting the Libyan madman. While President Obama thought about what to do, Sarkozy met with members of the Libyan opposition at the Elysee Palace on March 10 to support an overthrow of the Libyan leader.

Click to listen:

http://www.scpr.org/programs/patt-morrison/2011/03/14/manning/

It’s ironic that PJ Crowley went to MIT to talk about the power of new media on foreign policy issues only to find that a blog posting of his remarks ended his career as America’s top foreign policy spokesman.  It’s also ironic that although Crowley’s comments were immediately reported via twitter, Facebook and several foreign policy blogs, his boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn’t immediately mind.

Susan Rice skips another UN meeting

At great personal risk to himself and his family, Libya’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Dabbashi, pushed the UN Security Council to take up the violence in his home country. Dabbashi said he could no longer support the regime of his boss Moammar Gadhafi and stepped out to condemn what he called “a genocide”. The dramatic event prompted the first UN meeting of the 15 member Security Council on the uprisings sweeping across the region since the beginning of Tunisia’s revolution, Egypt’s violence and the developing protests in Bahrain, Yemen, Palestine and Iran.

The United States was represented by Foreign Service officer and Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo. The Obama Administration’s appointed Ambassador, Susan Rice, skipped the Libya meeting and instead flew to South Africa to attend a UN panel discussion on global sustainability.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice announced to the UN’s Arab group that she will support their statement condemning Israel for its settlement construction after failing to convince the group to support her language. Rice previously offered the Arab group a plethora of U.S. government compromises in exchange for different language – language they rejected outright. The Arab group immediately responded to her acquiescence by announcing that they will turn the statement she is supporting into a legally binding and more serious UN resolution to be voted on soon. Rice’s failed UN engagement strategy highlights the dangerous slippery slope of bringing delicate foreign policy crises to the 15 member Security Council. Her actions also perilously miss the message of Egypt’s protesters who are demanding economic reform from their dormant and manipulative leaders.

George W. Bush must be smiling. It started with Afghanistan, then Iraq, Tunisia and now Egypt. The Arab youth are defying Joe Biden and the rest of the American foreign policy “establishment” and proving that their demands are legitimate. Egyptian students, doctors, lawyers and the unemployed are showing that democracy is attainable for the Middle East and that Arabs, too, deserve to live in freedom and prosperity. Tunisia’s revolution was quick, Egypt’s was forceful and resolute. All eyes are on Algeria, Palestine, Yemen and Jordan whose youth seem to be simmering in the same way. Like it or not, George Bush was right and Joe Biden was wrong.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s 30 year rule could be coming to end. But Vice President Joe Biden, speaking for the administration, hopes it’s not. On PBS News Hour Thursday, Biden said, “Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator.”

It has been almost six years since a brutal bombing in Beirut killed Lebanon’s Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others on Valentine’s Day 2005. This week, the UN prosecutor overseeing the investigation finally submitted sealed indictments to the criminal court’s pre-trial judge as to who was responsible for the bombing. UN investigators and foreign intelligence over the last several years, however, have consistently pointed to senior Syrian and Iranian officials’ involvement. While the names of the indicted individuals are not expected to be known for eight weeks, the Obama Administration has known for quite some time that senior Syrian and Iranian officials are to blame for the brutal killings.

America’s involvement in conflicts for the foreseeable future will be determined by Washington’s appetite for nation-building and debated by asking tough questions about whether or not we will be temporary occupiers or outside supporters. Americans, after all, have spent billions of dollars, and thousands of lives have been lost, fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban from inside Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Los Angeles Times editorial board can’t get its story straight on the reasons the Senate should pass the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).  Or maybe it just doesn’t understand the complicated issue and what is at stake.  Thursday’s editorial insists that there is bipartisan support for the treaty and that only a few radicals want to kill it and then attacks Senator Jon Kyl from Arizona for not supporting it and “acting not in the interest of the nation but of his party”.  Either the treaty has bipartisan support or it doesn’t.  Either it’s not a partisan treaty…

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President Barack Obama arrived in India this week with a large gift in hand.  After just a few short hours, Obama announced to the world that America would support India as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.  The support from Obama was a huge coup for the Indians but took diplomats at the UN by surprise.  India, after all, was being rewarded despite the fact that it has done very little to help reform the UN.  Ironically, it has been India that has stood in the way of the very sweeping reforms that will now be needed…

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Bravo, Canada A U.N. snub is a badge of honor. Life must be very good in Canada, or at least dull, judging by the domestic reaction to its failed bid last week for a temporary seat on the U.N. Security Council. Listen to the yowls in the papers north of the border: “A nation reeling,” “humiliating defeat,” “a rebuke from the global community,” “tarnishes our reputation,” “a slap in the face.” We say: Way to go. Canada seems to have annoyed a sufficient number of Third World dictators and liberally pious Westerners to come up short in a secret General…

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