` SEPTEMBER 2011 www.al-sahafa.us America’s Monthly Middle Eastern Newspaper How Long Before the Dominoes Fall? dangerous game when unelected papers. With freedom in Syria and Jordan, we could travel Arab rulers join in. Who now re- from Algeria to Turkey and onwards into Europe without members the forgotten 1977 war so much as a visa. The Ottoman Empire reborn! Except in which Anwar Sadat sent his for the Arabs, of course. Be sure they will still need visas. bombers to pulverize Gaddafi ’s airbases – the very same airbases We are not there yet. How gloomily Maher al-Assad, Nato has been attacking these past brother of Bashar and commander of Syria’s infamous 4th months – after Israel warned the Brigade, must have listened to al-Jazeera’s last phone call Egyptian president that Gaddafi to Libya’s Mohammed Gaddafi . “We lacked wisdom and was planning his assassination? foresight,” Mohammed complained to the world before But Gaddafi ’s dictatorship out- gunfi re broke across his voice. “They are in the house!”. lived Egypt’s Sadat by 30 years. Then: “God is great.” And the line went dead. Yet like all the others, Libya Every unelected Arab leader – “elected” through fraud – suffered from the cancer of the will have pondered that voice. Wisdom is certainly a qual- Arab world: fi nancial – and moral ity much lacking in the Middle East, foresight a skill which – corruption. Will the future be the Arabs and the West have both neglected. East and West any different? We have spent far – if they can be divided so crudely – have both lost the too much time honoring the cour- ability to think of the future. The next 24 hours is all that age of Libyan “freedom fi ghters” matters. Will there be protests in Hama, Syria tomorrow? as they scurried across the desert What is Obama to say on prime time? What is England’s fl oor, far too little time examin- Cameron to say to the world? Domino theories are a fraud. ing the nature of the beast, the The Arab Spring is going to last for years. We better think By; Robert Fisk glutinous Transitional National about that. There is no “end to history”. Council whose supposed leader, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, has he West is offering lessons in democracy to New still been unable to explain if his own chums connived in See Cover Story Pages: 4-5 Libya; how to avoid the chaos we ourselves in- the murder of their own army commander last month. Al- fl icted on the Iraqis. The Arab Spring-Summer- ready, the West is offering lessons in democracy to New LIBYA Autumn has proved not just that the old colonial Libya, indulgently telling its unelected leadership how to Tfrontiers remain inviolate – an awful tribute to imperi- avoid the chaos which we ourselves infl icted on the Iraqis alism, I suppose – but that every revolution has its own when we “liberated” them eight years ago. Who will get characteristics. If all Arab uprisings have their clutch of the backhanders in the new regime – democratic or not – martyrs, some rebellions are more violent than others. As once it is in place? The “Marilyn Monroe” Saif al-Islam Gaddafi said at the start of his own eventual Sex Symbol of the downfall, “Libya is not Tunisia, it’s not Egypt...It will be- And how soon, we must ask, before the people of Europe come civil war. There will be bloodshed on the streets.” demand to know why, if Nato has been so successful in Middle East Passes And there was. Libya – as England’s Cameron and his mates now claim Away… – it cannot be used against Assad’s legions in Syria, us- And so we gaze into the crystal ball. Libya will be a ing Cyprus as a territorial aircraft-carrier, devastating the Middle East superpower – unless we impose an economic regime’s 8,000 tanks and armored vehicles as they besiege See Page 12 occupation as the price of Nato’s “liberating” bombard- the country’s cities. ment – and a less African, more Arab country now that Tunisia’s Ben Ali gone, Egypt’s Mubarak gone, Yemen’s Gaddafi ’s obsession with central and southern Africa has Saleh more or less gone, Libya’s Gaddafi overthrown, disappeared. It may infect Algeria and Morocco with its Syria’s Assad in danger, and King Abdullah of Jordan still freedoms. The Gulf states will be happy – up to a point – facing opposition. But the Ottoman empire cannot be for- since most regarded Gaddafi as mentally unstable as well gotten at so critical an hour. At the height of its power, as mischievous. But unseating tyrannical Arab rulers is a you could travel from Morocco to Constantinople without Lottery players are subject to Ohio laws and Commission regulations. Please play responsibly. September 2011 • Page 2 www.al-sahafa.us EDITOR’S THOUGHTS No wonder they can’t fi nd Gaddafi . They’re looking in Tripoli, Lebanon instead of Tripoli, Libya! So it seems CNN can’t fi nd Tripoli on a map, at least not the right one. On August 22nd, CNN correspondent Sara Sid- ner was in Tripoli, Libya reporting on the rebel advance into the city of Tripoli in Libya - on the fate of Moammer Gaddafi .. Unfortunately when she was interviewed recently whoever was in Publisher; Fatina Salaheddine with Ms. charge of graphics at CNN must’ve been someone Octavia Nasr (CNN’s former Senior Editor who fl unked geography, as they showed a map of of Mideast Affairs), in Washington DC at the Tripoli, Lebanon – instead of Tripoli, Libya. U.S.-Arab World Forum. Personally folks – I think that if Ms. Octavia Nasr; CNN’s former Senior Editor of Mideast Af- fairs, (who happens to be Lebanese), was still at CNN – this discredited mistake for the network Lebanese-American could’ve been avoided. We are pleased to announce, that the Al-Sahafa Newspaper is an offi cial U.S. correspondent to: The Lebanese Broadcasting Channel, Future TV, MTV Lebanon, and The Al-Jazeera Network. Please stay tuned for broadcast features from America, to be seen all over the globe, through these very important Middle East Media Satellite channels. Al-Sahafa Did you know? 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For you and I are sons of one religion and it is Inc. will commence legal action in the event, including attorney fees and in the spirit.” offi [email protected] costs to the prosecuted. -Khalil Gibran (Arab American poet) www.al-sahafa.us September 2011 • Page 3 CCoverCoverover SStoryStorytory LIBYA: History repeats itself, with mistakes of Iraq rehearsed afresh With Gaddafi at large, a guerrilla war eroding the new powers is inevitable By; Robert Fisk oil fi elds into the fi rst big up-for-grabs international dividend for foreign in- Doomed always to fi ght the last war, vestors after his 1969 revolution, is no we are recommitting the same old sin in Tikrit.