Uncertain new dawn in Arabia and Africa
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The same nations that opposed immediate free elections in Egypt because of their own strategic national security considerations were quick to approve the less-than-half-baked Presidential elections in Haiti, where the largest party was excluded.
These same nations also readily and quickly approved the razor-thin national presidential elections in Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) that was only bound to result in further tribal discord.
Incidentally, Haiti and Cote d'Ivoire's presidential elections were both held on the same day – November 28, 2010.
In both cases, a return to the polls – with full participation by all parties, under officially accepted international observance and with binding results – would have been a better course than insistence on accepting crooked or uncertain results.
The stubborn incumbent president in Cote d'Ivoire has taken the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) to court, challenging their acceptance of the controversial results and consequent actions.
The African Union (AU), unable to influence events in Cote d'Ivoire, is joining the West's tough talk against Libya.
The Arab Union, on the other hand, has remained less vocal about events in North Africa's most volatile Arab or Islamic states.
But if Egypt's future was (and still is) a continuing worry for Washington, London and Brussels, then Libya is a headache of migraine proportions.
They will continue to beat the drums of war in North Africa and on the Arab Street and boast the successes of Tweeter and FaceBook as new tools of protest with unlimited potential to be sharpened into weapons of war.
And, if fortune favors them and Gadaffi goes, they will naturally identify, by name, the next "dominoes" to fall – most likely Bahrain and Yemen, with name tags still to be filled for Morocco and Algeria, Syria and Jordan.
But, dangling dangerously over the heads of the foreign policy chiefs in the Western capitals is the uncertainty of what tomorrow's Egypt will be, where a post-Gadaffi Libya could stand, which will be the next "domino" to fall, who will emerge from the dust – and what they will have to do after a new dawn in Arabia and Africa.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/node_7107878.htm
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn
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