Retiring A Blog Born Out Of The Arab Spring

When this blog was launched it actually filled a void for a while. Few Washington-based bloggers were paying attention to the freedom uprisings on the Arab Street.

That has changed.

In the past few months the story moved to the front pages and the top of the newscasts. The phrase Arab Spring is standard today in the American lexicon.

The fall of Gadhafi, free elections in Tunisia and exciting new opportunities present a grand point in the experiment to step aside as an enlightened observer and pursue new challenges and responsibilities. The blog may be retiring, but the fierce pursuit of freedom and democracy surely will not.

Thank you all for your support.

Fruit of the Arab Spring: Tunisia Votes & Libya Declares 'Liberation'

History will remember this day as one in which the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring took one of their biggest leaps towards freedom and democracy.

For Tunisia, the birthplace of the uprisings and reforms that swept across North Africa and the Middle East, voters turned out in en masse to cast ballots for a 217-person assembly that will forge a new government and constitution.

For Libya, the day marked the official declaration of liberation by the Transitional National Council and the freedom fighters who ousted the regime of Moammar Gadhafi.

An estimated two-thirds of eligible voters in Tunisia cast ballots 10 months after street vender Mohamed Bouazizi, 26, doused himself with a flammable liquid, set himself ablaze in Sidi Bouzid and triggered the unprecedented and thriving freedom movement. 

The breaking point came Dec. 17, 2010 for Bouazizi, when a policewoman unlawfully confiscated his vegetable cart and produce in the city located 190 miles south of Tunis.

His self-immolation triggered street protests across the country that were met with a heavy-handed response by President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali's security forces and secret police.

The thirst for freedom only grew for the Tunisian people, who were already plagued with poor wages, lousy living conditions and out-of-control inflation.

Bouazizi suffered and eventually died on Jan. 4 2011. Ali was toppled 10 days later.

"I congratulate the millions of Tunisians who voted in the first democratic elections to take place in the country that changed the course of history and began the Arab Spring," President Obama said in a statement.

"Just as so many Tunisian citizens protested peacefully in streets and squares to claim their rights, today they stood in lines and cast their votes to determine their own future," Obama said.

Conditions were not much better for the Libyan middle class, even with an ocean of oil under their desert country. Gadhafi used the excessive profits to fill the treasuries of his family, his henchmen and African despots who had pledged their allegiance.

But backed by the most powerful coalition air force and navy on the planet, the revolutionaries were transformed by foreign military advisers from a rag-tag band of spirited, but ill-trained and equipped fighters into a force able to execute one of the most impressive offensives in modern history.

Like Tunisia, the new Libya presents the potential for democratic reform and freedom from tyranny. The TNC has vowed to embrace reform as it seeks to rebuild its nation.

"The transitional authorities can build on this movement by promoting reconciliation and respect for human rights across Libyan society, while helping to prevent reprisals and ensuring the justice and due process that the Libyan people expect and deserve," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement.

"The path to democracy is a long-term process that requires the participation of all Libyans," Clinton added.

It is very, very early to predict how the freedom movement will continue to play out, but the path that the revolution has taken shows signs that Bouazizi's extreme form of protest and ultimate sacrifice was not for nothing.

Pro-Assad Mob Attacks and Detains U.S. Ambassador to Syria

The Syrian government simply has no answer for the gutsy and irrepressible U.S. ambassador to Damascus who continues to move around the country to document the atrocities committed on civilians by the regime's military and security forces.

Pro-regime thugs ambushed the motorcade today of Ambassador Robert Ford, pelting his car with eggs and rocks in what the U.S. believes was an attack that may have been condoned by government of Bashir al-Assad.

"The mob was violent," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner. "It tried, unsuccessfully, to attack embassy personnel while they were inside several embassy vehicles, seriously damaging the vehicles in the process."

Ford was on his way to a meeting with Hassan Abdel-Azim, who leads the opposition National Democratic Gathering, which opposes Assad's crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, known as the Arab Spring.

Ford and the American diplomatic delegation was trapped in the building for nearly two hours before the Assad regime finally sent in security forces to break up the mob on nearly 100 pro-Assad supporters.

"We condemn this unwarranted attack in the strongest possible terms," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement. "Ambassador Ford and his aides were conducting normal embassy business, and this attempt to intimidate our diplomats through violence is wholly unjustified."

It was not the first time the Assad regime sat back and allowed violence against American diplomats. Ford made a defiant visit in July to Hama, the epicenter of the Syrian freedom revolt, that triggered a retaliatory attack by civilians on the U.S. embassy compound.

At least 2,700 people have been killed by Assad forces since the uprising against Assad started.

Ford insists he will not be deterred and will continue to expose and document the heinous acts of violence by the regime against the Syrian population.

Bachmann Blasts Arab Spring Movement; Links Obama to Fall of Shah

American history is not the only subject that confuses GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann. The routinely revisionist congresswoman from Minnesota still cannot quite get her brain around the pro-democracy Middle East freedom movement, known as the Arab Spring.

Despite dictators being toppled in Tunesia, Egypt and Libya (Iraq, as well, albeit at a questionable cost in American lives and treasure), Bachmann condemned the Arab Spring, blaming President Obama for the popular uprisings, led by essentially enslaved peoples who seek the same freedoms enjoyed in Europe, North America and Israel.

"You want to know why we have an Arab Spring? Barack Obama has laid the table for an Arab Spring by demonstrating weakness from the United States of America," Bachmann said at a fundraiser today. 

"The number one duty of the President is to be the commander-in-chief," she told supporters at Troutman's barbecue joint in Concord, N.C. 

It was not the first time Bachmann butchered the facts about the Arab Spring, but she did meander into new territory when she sought to link ex-President Jimmy Carter's handling of the Islamic uprising in Iran in the late 1970s to Obama's handling of the Arab revolutions, according to MSNBC, which broke the story.

(MSNBC has the video of Bachmann's remarks here).

Bachmann further demonstrated that she has scant understanding of the widely accepted and long-held baseline negotiating point between Israel and the Palestinians -- that talks begin with both sides agreeing to the pre-1967 War border and move toward realistic land swaps from there.   

"We saw him put a lot of daylight between our relationship with our ally Israel  and when he called upon Israel to retreat to its indefensible 1967 borders. Don't think that message wasn't lost on Israel's 26 indefensible neighbors," Bachmann said.

Her comments came a week after Obama was criticized for one of the most pro-Israel addresses to the United Nations by a U.S. President.

On the upside, it is worth noting that Bachmann made the comments in Concord, North Carolina, so it could have been worse -- she could have suggested the American Revolution began there, as she did when she was in New Hampshire, whose capital is Concord.

All of Massachusetts can rejoice.

Abbas asks for Palestinian Statehood; Clinton Disses Bibi The Peacenik

First-time listeners of Bibi Netanyahu today would have thought he was a dove carrying an olive branch to his unfortunate Arab brothers.

"Now we’re in the same city, we’re in the same building, so let’s meet here today in the United Nations,” Netanyahu said, in an eye-rolling plea to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to sit down to talks. "With God’s help, we’ll find the common ground of peace."

Predictably, and in concert with an Obama administration that fears it will lose needed Jewish voters next year, Netanyahu appeared before the United Nations General Assembly not as the powerful hawk he has been for an entire career, but rather a somewhat broken isolated leader who is watching his only Muslim allies shake their heads at his failings.

Even former President Bill Clinton is warning the world that Netanyahu is not an honest broker when it comes to peace with the Palestinians. 

For those of us who more than a decade ago covered the Camp David II, Wye River and Sharm El Sheikh peace talks and follow Middle Eastern Affairs for the sheer love of the story and the region, that is not news, but it is timely.

And for The Big Dog, who knows first-hand how Netanyahu does business, the timing is no accident. 

On the eve of Netayahu's bluster-filled at the United Nations, Clinton undermined with random precision the right-wing Israeli leader's attempt to paint himself as a genuine Israeli peacemaker of the ilk of Menachem Begin or Yitzhak Rabin.

"The Israelis always wanted two things that once it turned out they had, it didn't seem so appealing to Mr. Netanyahu. They wanted to believe they had a partner for peace in a Palestinian government, and there's no question -- and the Netanyahu government has said -- that this is the finest Palestinian government they've ever had in the West Bank," Clinton said, according to Foreign Policy magazine's blogger, Josh Rogin.

"[Palestinian leaders] have explicity said on more than one occasion that if [Netanyahu] put up the deal that was offered to them before -- my deal -- that they would take it," Clinton said of the 2000 Camp David II accord rejected by Yasser Arafat.

Abbas, meanwhile, presented his letter today to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, requesting statehood for Palestine. 

"At a time when the Arab peoples affirm their quest for democracy – the Arab Spring – the time has come for the Palestinian Spring, the time for independence," Abbas told the UN General Assembly, much of which gave the Palestinian leader a standing ovation.

Here is a full transcript of Netanyahu's remarks.

Here is a full transcript of Abbas's remarks. 

Israel Clears Out Embassy in Jordan Fearing Repeat of Egypt

The Israeli government is taking no chances of a repeat of the weekend ransacking of its embassy in Cairo, pulling back its ambassador and most staff from its diplomatic mission in Jordan ahead a planned million-man march in support of the United Nations recogreposed proposed Palestinian statehood.

Israeli Ambassador to Jordan Daniel Nevo and his staff left its complex in Amman in a convoy overnight. The diplomats hope to return Sunday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said. Nevo and his staff routinely return to Israel for the sabbath.

The anti-Israeli sentiment in Egypt and Jordan is particularly troubling because they are the only Arab counties that have peace treaties with Israel.

President Obama had to intervene diplomatically on behalf of Israel to save the lives of trapped security personal in the Israeli embassy in Cairo.

Now the U.S. embassy in Jordan is also under increased protection by Jordanian police after Wikileaks diplomatic cables suggested a secret plan to turn Jordan into a homeland for Palestinians. There was a small protest outside the U.S. embassy in Amman yesterday in which demonstrators burned the American flag and demanded that the American diplomats be expelled from Jordan.

The region is swiftly becoming a powder keg amid the Palestinian Authority's plan to seek statehood at the UN.

The U.S. has vowed to veto any move for statehood on the UN Security Council and is lobbying other countries to do also oppose the move. Israel, however, increasingly becoming isolated and faces widespread support globally for Palestinian statehood.

Nonetheless, the U.S. is still hoping the statehood issue is abandoned, fearing a veto could trigger even more anti-American demonstrations in the Muslim world.

"We continue to see any kind of effort by the Palestinians in New York as counterproductive and not in the interest of achieving a two-state solution, which is our goal," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner.

"Our argument conveyed to countries around the world is that this is a counterproductive measure by the Palestinians, and because of that, it doesn’t get anybody any closer to a comprehensive peace settlement, and that’s why we’ve got to remain focused on getting them back to the negotiating table," Toner added.

The world's leading Islamic democracy, Turkey, which has diplomatic and trade relations with Tel Aviv, is also ripped at the Israeli government for failing to apologize for its soldiers killing nine Turkish civilians on a ship that was part of a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for Gaza last year.

A UN-appointed panel found the Israeli commandos faced "organized and violent resistance from a group of passengers," but was still heavy handed in its response that led to the massacre on aboard the ship. "It seems to us to have been too heavy a response too quickly. It was an excessive reaction to the situation," the panel's report stated.

An internal Israeli probe cleared its military of any wrongdoing.

Panetta Played Key Role in Saving Israeli Lives In Egypt

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was the Obama administration's point man who successfully pressed Egypt's interim military government to rescue six trapped guards at the Israeli embassy in Cairo, the Israeli government disclosed.

When Israeli government officials failed to get the Egyptians to take action, it was Panetta who stepped in and took action,  according to the Israeli Defense Ministry. 

Panetta telephoned Supreme Council of the Armed Forces Chairman Gen. Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, warning him to get the Israelis out safely or face recriminations from a nation that bankrolls and invests in Egypt.

"There's no time to waste," Panetta told Tantawi, warning that if the Israelis did not get of the embassy safely it "would have very severe consequences," according to Haaretz. 

Egyptian commandos went into the embassy a short time later and safely rescued the Israelis.

President Obama himself became engaged shortly after the violence broke out Friday, calling on Egypt to take steps to curb the threat to the Israel's sovereign embassy property. Obama spoke to Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

The demonstration at the Israeli embassy that turned violent and destructive is seen by many of the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring as a threat to democratic reforms because it represents a dangerous diversion from the need to move forward with elections and institution-building.

"There are (Egyptian) objectors, who are appealing not against policy, but against Israel," Netanyahu said.

For his part, Netanyahu worked the phones, speaking with Egyptian intelligence chief Gen. Murad Muwafi, after failing to get in touch with Tantawi.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, meanwhile, was in contact with  Panetta and  Dennis Ross, Middle East adviser on the White House National Security Council.

Barak had asked Panetta and Ross to push the Egyptian military "to protect the embassy from the demonstrators who broke into it," according to a statement from Barak's office.

The Israelis believe it is essential for the Cairo embassy to re-open quiuckly and stand as the symbol of Arab-Israeli relations.

"The Middle East is undergoing a historical earthquake and we have to operate calmly, responsibly," Netanyahu said today.

"Israel will continue to adhere to the peace treaty with Egypt. We are working together with the Egyptian government to quickly return our ambassador to Cairo," Netanyahu added.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke this weekend with her Egyptian counterpart, Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr, as she and other U.S. officials maintain constant contact with their Egyptian and Israeli counterparts, the State Department said.

"She welcomed the statements made by both Egyptian and Israeli officials that both remain committed to the peace between the two nations, and reiterated her view that Egyptian-Israeli peace is a cornerstone to regional stability," a State Department statement said.

"Additionally, Secretary Clinton offered her condolences to the loved ones of an Egyptian solider who passed away Friday night from wounds he sustained during last month’s violence in Sinai," the statement added.

Egypt's Pro-Democracy Protagonists Reject Move to Overrun Israeli Embassy

Some of the leading protagonists of the Arab Spring pro-democracy revolution took to Twitter overnight to denounce an Egyptian mob ransacking the Israeli embassy in Cairo.

Mahmoud Salam, Amr ElGabry and Gigi Ibrahim, among others, all questioned the mob's decision to storm into the Israeli mission, forcing out staff and ransacking the building.

"Those breaking into Israel Embassy do not represent me, they represent stupidity... and others,” Tweeted the Pan-Arab progressive intellectual @AmrElGabry.

The outspoken and widely followed Salam, better known by his @Sandmonkey handle, fired back when he came under fire for criticizing the mob action.

"Oh, so if u don't agree with attacking the Israeli embassy, u r a soft zionist sympathizer now? Lovely! Go (expletive deleted) yourselves," Salam shot back with his @Sandmonkey Twitter account.

"The deeper we get into the revolution the more apparent it becomes who believes in the revolution & who is simply riding the wave,” lamented Ibrahim, who goes by handle @Gsquare86.

"Result: while anti-Israel Egyptians may feel good, the country looks bad internationally. Stronger response early cld have defused things,” added the anonymous @arabist.

The BBC's Jerusalem correspondent Paul Danahar suggested Israel needs to do its part by behaving like a better neighbor, given the new reality in the Middle East.

"Embassy attack by protestors shows Israel must change way engages with neighbors post Arab spring cos now arab street has voice & muscle,” he Tweeted in his @pdanahar account.

At U.S. Urging, Egyptian Commandos Free Trapped Israelis at Embassy

Egyptian commandos freed six Israeli security guards stranded at their mob-occupied embassy in Cairo overnight in a gutsy image-saving raid that drew applause from a grateful Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

The trapped embassy guards were in a super-secure room at the mission that the mob could not break down, and Israeli officials watched the commando mission in a war room in Jerusalem as it unfolded, according to an inside source cited by YNetNews.

The stranded Israelis were whisked off to the Cairo airport, where they boarded an Israeli military plane.

"The mob attack on the Israeli embassy in Egypt is a serious incident, but could have been worse had the rioters managed to get through the last door and hurt our people," Netanyahu said.

The Obama administration quietly but firmly pressed the interim military government in Egypt to take action to ensure every Israeli was able to flee the embassy safely.

"I'm glad we managed to prevent a disaster and would like to thank U.S. President Obama for his help. I would also like to congratulate all the intelligence officials who helped in the rescue for their excellent work," Netanyahu said.

"The fact that the Egyptian authorities acted with determination and rescued our people should be noted and we extend them our thanks," Netanyahu added. "However, Egypt must not ignore the severe injury to the fabric of peace with Israel and such a blatant violation of international norms. We will hold consultations later on."

The Israeli ambassador to Egypt, his family and 80 staff earlier safely returned to Israel after about 30 angry protesters breached a cement wall with sledge hammers and stormed the Israeli embassy.      

Israeli ambassador Yitzhak Levanon and his entourage left Cairo for Israel early this morning on a military aircraft, Haaretz reported.

The mob managed to get into part of the Israeli embassy, where they dumped hundreds of documents and an Israeli flag out of the windows of the building.

The protesters set fire to two police vehicles outside the embassy and clashed with authorities who were unable to stop the ransacking of the embassy.

Yaakov Dvir, Israel's consul for state affairs and deputy ambassador, will remain in Egypt to maintain an Israeli presence, Reuters reported.

Egyptian Mob Storm and Loot Israeli Embassy

Angry Egyptian demonstrators ransacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo, looting anything they could grab including files and torching Cairo police cars that were sent there to protect the building, CNN reported.

Israeli diplomats had long cleared out, fearing such an attack after Israeli Defense Forces killed five Eqyptian soldiers last month when Sinai gunmen launched an attack on Isreali settlers.

President Obama spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu today expressing his "great concern about the situation at the Embassy, and the security of the Israelis serving there," a White House statement said.

"(Obama) reviewed the steps that the U.S. is taking at all levels to help resolve the situation without further violence, and to call on the Government of Egypt to honor its international obligations to safeguard the security of the Israeli Embassy," the statement said.

In the West Bank, Jewish hardliners this week attacked mosques in two separate Palestinian villages. The Israeli and U.S. governments condemned those attacks as provocative incidents meant to trigger more violence in that powder-keg of a region.

The U.S also called on Turkish and Israeli officials to tone down the fiery rhetoric between those two erstwhile allies over a humanitarian aid flotilla destined for Gaza. Turkey expelled Israel's ambassador and vowed to send Turkish warships along with the next flotilla to protect the humanitarian mission.

Israel and Turkey have long been silent partners, but that relationship has deteriorated since Israeli commandos last year boarded a Turkish ship carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza, killing nine civilian passengers.

Netanyahu has refused to apologize for the massacre on the Turkish ship.

Brawl Breaks Out In Courtroom At Mubarak Trial in Cairo

Call it frustration, anger, resentment or fear. The emerging democracy in Egypt has it all.

Fights reportedly broke out yesterday in the courtroom and in the streets of Cairo during the third appearance of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak, who is on trial for allegedly ordering secret police to fire on unarmed pro-democracy protesters during Egypt's Arab Spring revolution.

Defense lawyers clashed inside the courtroom with detractors of the defrocked Egyptian leader. Police had to break up the brawl, according to multiple reports.

During a moment of order, the first witness testified that Mubarak did not order the killing of protesters at Tahrir Square.

So far there is no video of the brawl. Judges banned cameras from the courtroom to protect the identity of witnesses at the trial.

Outside the courthouse pro- and anti-Mubarak demonstrators mixed it up, as well.

Clearly democracy demands patience.

France's Juppe on Libya: 'The Goal is About to be Achieved'

Statement today by French Prime Minister Alain Juppe:

"Yes, we took risks in Libya, at both diplomatic and military level. It was France who was the architect of UNSCR 1973. We – with our British friends in particular – were the sponsors of that resolution, which set the legal framework for the international intervention and, at the last minute, spared Benghazi’s population from a premeditated bloodbath. I won’t forget the gravity of the Security Council meeting where I spoke out in France’s name to secure the decision.

"Within NATO, it was France who made the greatest contribution, and I’d like to pay tribute to our pilots, our seamen and all our armed forces for their courage and professionalism.

"But as in Côte d’Ivoire, the risks taken were calculated. The cause – to which President Sarkozy and our diplomatic service were steadfastly committed – was just, because it was the liberation of a people and of democracy.

"France’s people and parliament lent us their support. The most skeptical individuals quickly started to talk of getting bogged down, even though the operation had only begun in March. Today, the goal is about to be achieved. Gadhafi’s regime no longer has any future. His last supporters must finally act with dignity, stop fighting and lay down their weapons to prevent any more bloodshed.

"From now on, we must look to the future. It’s for the Libyan people, and for them alone, to build the new Libya they’ve fought for. But it’s our duty to support them in this rebirth, which will not be free of difficulties.

"It’s true that Libya is a country with the potential for considerable wealth. That wealth must be put at the service of the country and its people. Everything, or nearly everything, has yet to be built or rebuilt. The international community must join in the effort, and in the vanguard will be France, whose early and unstinting support did her particular credit. A new page will be turned in Franco-Libyan relations. We’ll help to write it with the same determination and confidence."

Surrounded, Gadhafi Looking for Refuge Outside of Libya

Moammar Gadhafi is looking for an Arab country willing to give him safe haven after rebel armies cut off his supply lines and captured his last oil refinery as NATO warplanes kept his tanks from countering the opposition's ferocious week-long offensive, according to published and broadcast reports.

Civilians have begun fleeing Tripoli, fearing street-to-street fighting or one last act of deadly defiance by Gadhafi against his people.

NATO bombed Gadhafi's Bab al-Aziziyah compound overnight. At least seven loud blasts were heard and felt by Western journalists in Tripoli, the Associated Press reported.  

NBC reports Gadhafi could leave Libya, possibly for Tunisia, in a matter of days. NBC cited intelligence reports out of Washington. The loyalist government claimed it was engaged in talks with the rebels, asking for a cease-fire.

Gadhafi sent inquiries to Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, indicating he and his family are looking for a safe haven that would bring an end to his defiant stand against the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring, a representative of the rebel Transitional National Council in Cairo told the Pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat.

"Gadhafi is looking for a safe haven for his family in the case that Tripoli falls into the hands of the revolutionaries,"said Abdel Monem al-Houni, who was Gadhafi's top delegate to the Arab League before defecting to the rebel side.
      
The rebels say they have taken most of Zawiya, within 30 miles west of downtown Tripoli, capturing the last remaining oil refinery that had been proving fuel to the regime. Two other rebel armies have captured Zlintan to the east and Gharyan to the south with the help of Western air power, and the NATO Navy has cut off shipping to Tripoli.
 
Gadhafi and what remains of his forces are surrounded by what was once an uncoordinated rag-tag rebel force and a NATO alliance that has refused to put troops on the ground.

The key to the campaign was the emergence of a French-armed rebel division that came out of the Nafusa mountains in the West. With Gadhafi's forces tied up with the main rebel army in the east near Brega and separate opposition brigades out of Misurata, the Nafusa insurgents were able to march on Zawiya. NATO warplanes made it nearly impossible for Gadhafi's armor to move to re-enforce a loyalist garrison in that city.

France secretly parachuted small arms weapons, including tank-killers, in the Nafusa region earlier this summer, and more recently Qatar flew truckloads of ammunition into the captured air field outside of Misurata. NATO warships recently also helped the rebels capture a tanker loaded with fuel bound for Tripoli. The ship sailed into the de facto opposition capital Benghazi with rebels aboard. 

"The Gadhafi regime has few days before it breathes its last," al-Houni said.

Obama: Enough is Enough, Assad Must Go

President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared this morning the dictator of Damascus Bashir al-Assad must go for ordering his army and secret police to butcher more than 1,800 Syrian men, women and children who long for freedom.

The United States gave Assad more time and opportunities to clean up his act and embrace democratic reforms than most of the other big-name despots of the pro-democracy revolutions of the Arab Spring. The U.S. put in place the toughest sanctions to date along with the call for Assad to step down.

"The future of Syria must be determined by its people, but President Bashir al-Assad is standing in their way. His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing, and slaughtering his own people," Obama said in statement.

"We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way. He has not led. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside," Obama added.

Clinton explained that the U.S. has meticulously assembled a global chorus of opposition made up of Arab, Islamic and Western Nations in calling for the Assad regime to step down. Clinton signaled the U.S. strategy earlier this week when she said it would have done little good for the U.S. to act unilaterally.

"It is not going to be any news if the United States says Assad needs to go," she said. "OK, fine, what's next? If other people say it, if Turkey says it, if (Saudi) King Abdullah says it, there is no way the Assad regime can ignore it," Clinton said this week at a joint appearance at the National Defense University with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

"I think this is smart power, where it is not just brute force, it is not just unilateralism," she said. "It is being smart enough to say you know what we want a bunch of people singing out of the same hymn book and we want them singing a song of universal freedom, human rights, democracy, everything that we have stood for and pioneered over 235 years."

The demand that Assad resign comes as NATO and the Libyan rebels appear to be close to toppling the regime of Moammar Gadhafi.

As Markets Tank Israeli Protesters Resemble Arab Spring Not Tea Party

The Tel Aviv stock marked crashed and trading was halted today in reaction to the contentious politically driven decision by Standard & Poor's to lower the U.S. debt rating, but the protesters on the streets were not an Israeli-style Tea Party.

In a social justice movement that began as a tiny tent city meant to show the out-of-control cost of housing, more than 300,000 Israelis filled the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere to protest growing economic disparity between the wealthy and middle class citizens of the Jewish state.

The protesters turned their scorn on right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the Tel Aviv stock market plummeted by more than 6% overnight on news the S&P had downgraded the U.S. debt rating. The Israeli market closed automatically when stocks tanked.

The stock market in Dubai also crashed, while the Saudi Arabian trading barely rebounded after a severe decline yesterday. Analysts blamed it all on the S&P action.

Investors are now bracing for declines overnight tonight in the Asian and 
European markets and many fear even more gloom and doom when the U.S. markets open tomorrow morning.

The middle-class uprising in Israel appears to have more in common with the Middle Eastern pro-democracy movement known as the Arab Spring rather than the right-wing Tea Party hysteria that S&P blames for lowering the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+.

The Guardian of London described it this way: "Despite Israel's relatively healthy economic growth and low unemployment, wage disparities are big, wealth and corporate power are highly concentrated, food prices have increased almost 13% since 2005 and many people spend 50% of their incomes on rent or mortgages."

A sign carried by one protester yesterday written in Hebrew and Arabic said, "Egypt is here."

It should come as no shock that a social justice movement would take root in Israel, since the Jewish state was founded as a European-style socialist market democracy.

The founding father of Israel, the intellectual revolutionary David Ben-Gurion, was expelled from Palestine by the British colonial overlords in 1915 for his socialist activities. He later tempered his personal politics, but never lost touch with his socialist roots.

"Without Hebrew labor there is no way to absorb the Jewish masses. Without Hebrew labor, there will be no Jewish economy; without Hebrew labor, there will be no [Jewish] homeland. And anyone who does anything counter to the principle of Hebrew labor harms the most precious asset we have for fulfilling Zionism," Ben-Gurion said circa 1920, according to journalist and author Tom Segev in his book, "One Palestine Complete."

The Israeli demonstrators promise a million-person march next month, if not sooner given the economic conditions. 

UN Finally Condemns Syria's Killing Spree

Is the UN Security Council competing with the do-nothing U.S. Congress for world's laziest democratic governing body?

It took the UN Security Council four months and about 1,700 civilian deaths to finally get around to condemning genocidal dictator Bashir al-Assad's murderous crackdown on Syrian civilians who demand the regime resign and the country embrace democratic reforms.

The UN acted after Assad ordered hundreds of tanks and dozens of snipers into Hama and Deir el-Zour since last weekend, wiping out about 150 civilians.

The U.S. and European members of the UN Security Council have been pushing for some kind of statement, but the usual suspects Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa have stood in the way. Lebanon, acting as a satellite state, distanced itself from the UN statement. 

The death toll is set by humanitarian workers since western journalists are rarely allowed into Syria these days, and those reporters who are in the country are not able to roam freely. Journalists are escorted by Syrian authorities and most of the people they interview are scared pro-Assad Syrians.

Libya, Syria and Yemen are now the frontline of the pro-democracy uprising known as the Arab Spring.

Bedridden Mubarak Stands Public Trial

The Arab Spring moved to a Cairo courtroom overnight where deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak was wheeled in on a hospital bed into a cage with two of his sons to stand trial on charges of killing pro-democracy protesters and widespread corruption.

If convicted, the ailing ex-leader could get the death penalty for allegedly ordering the death of more than 800 demonstrations during the uprising earlier this year. Mubarak's sons Alaa and Gamal, and former Interior Minister Habib el-Adli, joined the ex-leader in the cage.

Prone in his bed, Mubarak pleaded not guilty.

The sometimes difficult-to-follow court procedings that aired on Egyptian state tv came as hundreds of protesters clashed outside the police headquarters where the trial is being conducted.

Mubarek, 83, is suffering from a heart condition, but it did not keep the provisional military government from putting him on trial in front of the whole country and world. The generals wanted to the country to see they are conductiung the promised trial, hoping the public display would demonstrate that the promised transition in Egypt is underway.

Ally or not, U.S Gives Saleh His Walking Papers

Yemen's ailing President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a key ally in the war on terror, is being urged by the U.S. to stay in Saudi Arabia and hand over power to a new government, as the Gulf Cooperation Council has urged.

President Obama's counterterrorism adviser John Brennan visited with Saleh at a Saudi military hospital over the weekend, advising him to sign a deal transferring power. Brennan handed Saleh a letter from Obama that indicated the U.S. leader's support for the Arab Spring freedom movement that has swept out several longtime Arab dictators.

Saleh and Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi are the next despots in line to get the boot.

"During the meeting, Mr. Brennan called upon President Saleh to fulfil expeditiously his pledge to sign the GCC-brokered agreement for peaceful and constitutional political transition in Yemen," a White House the statement said.

"The United States believes that a transition in Yemen should begin immediately so that the Yemeni people can realise their aspirations," thee statement added.

Saleh is recovering from bad burns and other injuries sustained during aJune 3 assassination attempt on his presidential compound in Sanaa, Yemen. In power in Yemen since 1978, Saleh has long allowed U.S. killer drones to fly over his airspace to target suspected members and accomplices of Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula.

U.S. counterterrorism officials have been sweating out the demise of Saleh, preferring to look the other way while the unpopular despot tightens his grip on his own people in order to keep him power. But the so-called terror-hunters appear to be on the losing end of that argument.

Pawlenty Goes Chicken Hawk Two Weeks After Being Chicken

GOP  presidential hopeful Tim  Pawlenty accused President Obama of failing in his words, "to carry out an effective and coherent strategy in response" to the uprisings in the Middle East and Northern Africa, known as the "Arab Spring."

Apparently seeking to carry the neocon mantle in the Republican field, Pawlenty accused the President of treating Israel "as a problem, rather than as an ally."

The attacks on the Obama administration's foreign policy came during an address today before the Council on Foreign Relations.

It was tough talk for the former Minnesota governor, who just two weeks ago in the first New Hampshire GOP presidential debate embraced an isolationist foreign policy position, calling for fewer interventions abroad. What a difference a couple of weeks makes.

Pawlenty also refused to mix it up with Mitt Romney over what he had called "ObamaneyCare" -- a too-cute attack that sought to link the health care reforms implemented in Massachusetts by then-Gov. Romney and last year by Obama.

Obama admittedly was late to siding with the revolutionaries in Egypt and Libya, but he has more than made up with his commitment to doing all he can to prop up the pro-democracy freedom movement.

The President, meanwhile, is in Iowa today discussing incentives for creating new manufacturing jobs, the Holy Grail of the U.S. economy. He is at an ALCOA plant in eastern Iowa that makes components for jumbo jets. 

And the President isn't the only big-name politician in the state. Maybe wouild-be GOP presidential candidate Sarah Palin is there too Palin, about 150 miles from Obama, to attend the premiere of "The Undefeated," a sappy documentary about her time as governor of Alaska and her ascent to the GOP's vice presidential nominee in 2008.

Rebels on 'Third Front' Move Within 50 Miles of Tripoli

Rebels battling on Libya's western front claim they have moved to just outside the town of Bair al-Ghanam only about 50 miles from Tripoli after a string of victories in the Nafusa Mountains.

On paper, the western offensive is part of a potential pincer movement to take Tripoli, but the other army required to pull off the maneuver is hung up in the east, mainly massed in Ajdabiya.

A third front exists in rebel-held Misurata, where at least two lightly armed brigades have taken the city but may not have the troops to pull off a 100-mile march without linking up with the larger force toy the east.

The latest fighting comes amid back-channel talks between surrogates for the rebels and Gadhafi that are most likely doomed to fail unless Moammar Gadhafi and his family agree to step down and leave government. Gadhafi made another offer to hold elections, but the rebels and NATO again rejected the idea as being too little too late.

The Nafusa Mountains campaign does not get much attention, but the rebel forces in recent weeks have been pushing Gadhafi forces back towards Tripoli.

Communications among the organized fighters as well as the Tripoli underground have been difficult. The rebel groups are not organizing via the Internet or text messaging as the earlier revolutionaries in Tunesia and Libya.