A draft constitution for the new Libyan state has already been released. A close reading reveals echoes of and contrasts with comparable texts from Egypt and Tunisia. But the speed of its publication is a serious concern, says Zaid Al-Ali.
The major lesson that the Arab revolutions can draw from the new Iraq is the importance of a phased transition from dictatorship to democracy where national bodies govern by the rule of law and include a balanced representation of all factions and communities, argues Fatima Issawi.
The Libyan war is often portrayed through a “tribal” lens that fails to explain how the country’s tribes coexist with a sense of nationhood, says Igor Cherstich.
In the Arab spring, new social media and the established media disseminated the voices of dissent and images of state brutality worldwide. The sheer drama of these unfolding events conveyed to us by correspondents physically embedded among the protestors, vividly conveyed the elation involved in c
The establishment and deepening of a democratic culture is a long-term project and is intergenerational. As divisions open up between the elites and the street as well as within the elites, the events of 2011 across the Middle East and North Africa represent a powerful first step in a larger proce
Libyans face the complex challenge of creating a new order and a new society from the rubble of the old. Lessons learned elsewhere on peacebuilding and statebuilding offer a checklist and an evidence-based framework for action.
Extremist Islamists may only be one small part of a wide cross-section of disenfranchised Libyans who could no longer bear the tyranny of Gadaffi, but they pose the question whether reactions to the Arab Revolutions are ever entirely innocent of double standards.
The United States's political-military strategy for drawdown in Afghanistan is in trouble, even as Washington is tempted by increased high-tech military engagement in other theatres of war.
The outcome of the Libyan conflict leaves the Arab world’s wider political momentum to be decided by the interplay between mobilisation and repression, says Mark Taylor.
The idea of recording, identifying and acknowledging each individual victim of armed conflict - and holding to account those responsible - extends the principles underlying the laws of war.
Afghan forces, aided by ISAF have managed to end the attack on the US embassy, Nato headquarters and police buildings in Kabul. A bomb planted on a military bus in Iraq has killed 15 Iraqi soldiers and wounded 20 others. Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh has authorized his deputy to negotiate a
There is intense rethinking in the Pentagon about the “war on terror”. The outcome of the Libyan conflict will reinforce its principal trends.
