THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The murder of the US ambassador to Libya is a shocking reminder to Barack Obama that helping to overthrow dictators does not guarantee stability in the region
For anyone who still clings to a naive belief that recent dramatic changes to the political landscape of the Middle East have made the world a safer place, the murder of the US Ambassador to Libya and three other embassy staff on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks should act as a brutal wake-up call.
For more than a year, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have given their enthusiastic backing to the seismic changes taking place among the ruling elites who have dominated the region for decades. As dictator after dictator has been removed from power, either through force of arms or the overwhelming strength of popular discontent, Western leaders have universally given their support to what they mistakenly identified as an “Arab Spring” of Western-style pro-democracy movements sweeping aside despotism.
In Washington President Barack Obama has sought, from the start of his presidency, a “new beginning” for America’s problematic relationship with the Muslim world. He has given unqualified support to those campaigning for change in the major Arab capitals, actively encouraging the overthrow of one of Washington’s longest-serving allies, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak, and backing the military campaign to overthrow Libya’s Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
In London, a similarly proactive stance has been adopted by the Coalition. David Cameron and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy were at the forefront of last year’s Nato-led coalition to effect regime change in Tripoli, while William Hague regularly lectures his Foreign Office staff that it is important for Britain to be seen to support the reformers clamouring for change in the Middle East.
But as the brutal murders of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues in the Libyan coastal city of Benghazi have demonstrated, the wave of change sweeping the region is not without risk. It is still too early to say for sure who was responsible for the attack on Mr Stevens’s convoy as he was being evacuated from the American consulate following an assault by a mob of anti-American protesters, but this tragic episode certainly brings into stark relief the dangerous currents that are swirling beneath the reform movements. Read on and comment » | Con Coughlin | Wednesday, September 12, 2012
