THE GUARDIAN – EDITORIAL: The conflict inherent between policy and principle continues to this day
The international community has been compromised by the revolution sweeping the Arab world. In three uncertain weeks, the United States vacillated from urging stability to shore up a strategic ally in Hosni Mubarak to cheering his overthrow. France trod the same path in Tunisia. Happily, the foreign minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, whose first reaction to the uprising was to offer Ben Ali France's superior knowledge in riot control, has finally resigned. But her family's involvement with the ancien regime (her parents had shares in a property company owned by a businessman close to the regime) provided its own morality play.
Few were disinterested observers. When it came to the crunch, such as organising the interrogation under torture of jihadis picked up in Pakistan, the CIA, among others, traded with the darkest elements of Mubarak's regime being denounced with such ardour today. Russia and China, both of whom have much to fear from spontaneous demonstrations by their own people, have fared little better. Continue reading and comment >>> Editorial | Tuesday, March 01, 2011
