I haven't updated this blog in more than a month, yet so much has happened since Mubarak stepped down. Protests have sprung up almost all over the Arab world, most notably in Bahrain, Yemen, Syria, and of course Libya. Although the people in Benghazi went on the street thanking Obama and the UN when the Security Council decided to sanction foreign intervention, I strongly wonder if they'll still have the same euphoric attitude towards Nato after the events in the past two days. Nato has seemed increasingly incompetent ever since the US relinquished command, and the accidental airstrike and killing of the "rebels" (I strongly disagree with this moniker, since it seems to convey that the uprising in eastern Libya is illegitimate) has only shown the lack of coherence even within the organization, not to mention communication with the civilian command in Benghazi. In a
rapid sequence of contradictions, Nato's Russell Harding first denied the opposition commander Abdelfatah Yunis' claims that Nato had already apologized for the accident, and less than a day later was again contradicted by an apology from another Nato commander. Okay, so maybe Nato is really choosing its targets carefully, but if
they really aren't doing everything they can in Misrata, this very public PR mishap will only sow the seeds for future resentment against the West – and considering that the EU and US have already been accused of choosing targets for intervention (yes in Libya, no in Bahrain and Syria, and plainly ignorant of events in Côte d'Ivoire), the West is simply finding itself
dragged in a losing battle for a good reputation in the Middle East.
