After decades of stasis, the Middle East is in uproar. Too much is happening to focus on a single place, so here’s a review of developments in four key countries.
LIBYA
Without most Americans quite realizing it, their government haphazardly went to war on March 19th against Moammar al-Qaddafi’s Libya. Hostilities were barely acknowledged, covered with euphemism (“kinetic military action, particularly on the front end”), and without a clear goal. Two Obama-administration principals were out of the country — the president in Chile, the secretary of state in France. Members of Congress, not consulted, responded angrily across the political spectrum. Some analysts discerned a precedent for a military attack on Israel.
