The ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has inspired waves of protests across North Africa and the Middle East. Unrest is growing in Bahrain, Oman and Yemen because of deaths related to government crackdowns on demonstrators in all three nations.
Tens of thousands are fleeing Libya as calls for leader Moammar Gadhafi to relinquish power have evolved into deadly skirmishes between government and opposition forces, the situation approaching civil war. Saudi Arabia has outlawed demonstrations altogether and authorized security forces to stifle protests.
It is unfortunate, as Libyan rebels seize ammunition depots amid bombings from Gadhafi's air forces, that violence is the commonest means for casting off a dictatorial power.
But it is more unfortunate that the United States has been complacent with thugs like Gadhafi for so long.
In fact, scratch complacent--our government was negotiating an arms deal of 50 or more armored personnel carriers with Libya in the months leading up to the revolts.
Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh has been in power for 32 years and is considered a U.S. ally in the fight against al-Qaida. Last week, in an effort to galvanize his own support, he blamed the U.S. and Israel (as expected) of ginning up Yemen's anti-government movement.
Clearly, Saleh finds it beneficial to distance himself from America, tapping into existing anti-American sentiment by portraying the U.S. as an adversary of his regime and Yemeni independence. What an ally.
The spirit of revolution sweeping the region is an enormous opportunity for America and the Western world to retool relations with these predominately Muslim nations and their people. We have a chance to support freedom for the region's inhabitants by backing leaders who will do the same--not leaders who are, from America's view, "better than the alternative" or who will "play nice" with Israel, but those who genuinely believe the power of government rests with the people.
Alternatively, the revolutions do pose the risk of individuals or groups just as oppressive and violent exerting influence or even gaining power under the auspices of liberation.
Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, banned from the U.S. and Great Britain for some of his views and exiled from Egypt for decades, returned to the nation shortly after the fall of Mumbarak's regime. Al-Qaradawi has publicly prayed for the annihilation of the "oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people."
Influential Yemeni sheik Abdul Majid al-Zindani, former mentor to Osama bin Laden and termed a "specially designated global terrorist" by the U.S. Treasury Department, is advocating an Islamic state in Yemen.
Al-Zindani founded a university in Yemen where Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born Muslim radical targeted by the Obama administration for assassination, once attended and lectured.
America and the West cannot again fall into the trap of acquiescing to dictators like Gadhafi and Mubarak for our own perceived convenience, for when the next generation of young Egyptians or Libyans find themselves destitute and without freedom, they too will rise up.
We must be unwavering in our view when dealing with governments of foreign nations that, based on our own American experiment, individual liberty is the surest path to peace and prosperity. The sooner this happens, the sooner the people of North Africa and the Middle East will see we stand with them, not with their authoritarian leaders.
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