arab spring

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a presidential-style address this morning on the deaths of diplomats in Libya. Watch here:

Yesterday, on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an Egyptian mob stormed the U.S. embassy in Cairo, pulled down the American flag and burned it. In its place, they raised a black banner inscribed with the shehada ("There is no God but Allah, Mohamed is the messenger of Allah"), a pennant typically associated with al Qaeda.

According to a transcript of this morning's statement, President Barack Obama failed to mention the storming of the U.S. embassy in Cairo yesterday. His statement focused on the loss of an American ambassador and other embassy workers yesterday in Benghazi, Libya.

Here's video of the U.S. embassy in Cairo being mobbed yesterday:

A WEEKLY STANDARD reader points out that in all the early commentary about the events in Libya and Egypt, no one seems to have noted the date. Could it be, as he puts it, that "someone had it marked on a calendar to whip up a murderous frenzy on, oh, Tuesday 9/11"?

If Syria is a testing ground for the larger struggle of the American-led order in the Middle East against the Iranian-led resistance bloc, it’s also an example of the importance of the Kurds. An ethnic community with almost 30 million people spread across the Middle East—most densely in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria—the Kurds have become a major player in this larger struggle, with regional powers, like Turkey, Iran and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, courting various Kurdish parties and figures in order to advance their own interests.

In Beirut last week, former Lebanese MP and cabinet member Michel Samaha was arrested and later confessed to “planning terrorist attacks in Lebanon at Syrian orders.”

Last week the Treasury Department leveled sanctions against Hezbollah for providing support to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in his efforts to put down the 17-month-old rebellion meant to topple his regime.

Earlier this month, 48 Iranian Shiite “pilgrims” were abducted in Damascus. The Free Syrian Army claims they were members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, who have been dispatched to Syria to protect one of Tehran’s vital interests, Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

To Hell in a Handbasket
Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring'
by Ruthie Blum
RVP, 212pp., $17.95

Kofi Annan resigned yesterday as the United Nations-Arab League Envoy to Syria after failing to bring an end to the internecine violence that has been raging in Syria since last spring.

For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, Saudi women are being allowed by their ultra-conservative government to compete. As the Saudi athletes marched in the opening ceremonies in London, the women’s faces and open arms showed a joyful sense of emancipation from the yoke of political, religious, and traditional marginalization. By the standards of free and advanced societies, the advance is small, but by Saudi standards, it is a gigantic step forward, with far-reaching implications for Saudi Arabia and the international community.