US News:

While higher oil prices are a cause for concern in the United States, they are providing a lift for resource-rich Russia, the world’s largest producer of oil and second-largest producer of natural gas as well as the largest non-OPEC exporter of oil. Vlad Milev, manager of the Metzler/Payden European Emerging Markets Fund (symbol MPYMX), says the country’s entire economy is reaping the benefits. The Russian government takes a portion of oil revenues and distributes them throughout the economy, Milev says, which creates a trickle-down effect for other Russian businesses and consumers. “So that gives a boost to the economy as well,” he says.

So far this year, emerging markets have struggled to keep up with developed nations like the United States for a number of reasons, most notably unrest in the Middle East and higher inflation concerns…

The energy sector holds many of Russia’s most promising stocks. About half of Milev’s fund is invested in Russia, mostly in energy companies like Gazprom, one of the world’s largest natural gas companies, and oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft. So far this year, the three have been strong performers returning 26 percent, 27 percent, and 34 percent, respectively.

Anyone who remembers the oil price spike of 2008 knows that, with anemic economic growth in much of the world, there is far less justification for the crazy prices this time around. Back in 2008, prices could spike $10 in a day based on one rumor or another. Question: if you were a Russian oil company, or invested (in a highly leveraged way) in Russian or other energy stocks, would you just sit on the sidelines or would you seek to actively manipulate the market? If you were Iran? If you were Venezuela? Yet there are no calls for investigations — it’s all “unrest in the Middle East and higher inflation concerns.” How convenient.

The attorney general says of the criminal case against a murderer that it is “one of the most well-researched and documented cases I have ever seen in my decades of experience as a prosecutor.” The man was captured in March 2003, and his crime goes back more than 10 years. He is responsible for the murder of 3000 people, confessed to the crime / act-of-war, and told a judge 3 years ago he wanted to plead guilty. Keeping in mind that it took around 50 days from apprehension to execution in the case of FDR and the Nazi spies, we have a question: why is he still alive?

Final point. Memo to the NYT: holding a criminal trial in NYC 10 years after the massacre to demonstrate the superiority of the US rule of law, would in fact demonstrate just the opposite. It shows you can kill 3000 Americans and ten years later, you still have (a) no trial; (b) three hots and a cot; and (c) probably cable TV too. How sick is that?

David Brooks of the NYT talks about that certain someone with the perfect crease. He describes the weightiness of taking a decision about intervention in Libya:

He took it fully aware that we don’t know much about Libya. He took it fully aware that if he took this action he would be partially on the hook for Libya’s future. But he took it as an American must — motivated by this country’s historical role as a champion of freedom and humanity — and with the awareness that we simply could not stand by with Russia and China in opposition. In this decision, one could see the same sensitive, idealistic man who wrote “Dreams From My Father.”…

this is an intervention done in the spirit of Reinhold Niebuhr. It is motivated by a noble sentiment, to combat evil, but it is being done without self-righteousness and with a prudent awareness of the limits and the ironies of history.

It’s going to be an awfully long year and a half until next November. HT: Powerline

NYT:

The mullahs in Tehran, noted Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser, were watching Mr. Obama’s every move in the Arab world. They would interpret a failure to back up his declaration that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi had “lost the legitimacy to lead” as a sign of weakness — and perhaps as a signal that Mr. Obama was equally unwilling to back up his vow never to allow Iran to gain the ability to build a nuclear weapon.

This attempt at spin is meant as a joke, right?

Steven Metz in TNR tells us what the US’s Libya strategy is:

Obama’s Libya strategy is designed to avoid the most undesirable outcomes rather than optimize the chances of a desired outcome, to do something without “owning” the conflict, to maintain maximum flexibility as the situation evolves…Obama appears determined to avoid two particularly bad things: an outright Qaddafi victory…and Al Qaeda influence within the rebel movement.

So perhaps the answer to Mark Steyn’s question is yes.

Mark Steyn has a question in the wake of reports that we’re now bombing the rebels as well as the Gadhafi loyalists in Libya:

it’s rare to find a leader so impeccably multilateralist that he’s willing to participate in both sides of a war. It doesn’t exactly do much for holding it under budget, but it does ensure that for once we’ve got a sporting chance of coming out on the winning side. If a coalition plane bombing Gadhafi’s forces runs into a coalition plane bombing the rebel forces, are they allowed to open fire on each other?

The NYT has a story about Afghanistan, a country with 140,000 American armed forces:

protests over the burning of a Koran in Florida flared for a second straight day, with young men rampaging through the streets of this southern capital, flying Taliban flags and wielding sticks. Nine people were killed and 81 injured…

rioters attacked the Zarghona Ana High School for Girls, burning some classrooms and a school bus. The school is supported by the United States Agency for International Development. The Taliban have opposed girls’ education….

a team of suicide bombers attempted to breach the front gate at an American military base in Kabul, Camp Phoenix, according to Mohammed Zahir, chief of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Kabul Police. Two of them were disguised as women, wearing full-length burqas, and two others were carrying small arms, he said. One of the burqa-clad bombers blew up at the gate of the camp

Once again, please explain why the US is in this medieval backwater ten years after 9-11. What exactly is the mission now and how do you define success? Why are we in this country when even the UN workers there say it’s time to leave? (An online poll on the topic at Powerline resulted in about 75% in favor of getting out.)

George Friedman of Stratfor is in Istanbul. We join a conversation between him and Colin Chapman:

According to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the United States joint Chiefs, the airstrikes over Libya have destroyed between 20 and 25 percent of Gadhafi’s forward forces, which means at least three quarters are still intact. And Mullen says Libyan tanks and armored vehicles outnumber the opposition 10 to one….

It’s fairly extraordinary the world is suddenly discovering that Gadhafi and the people around him are monsters. But, on the other hand, it’s important to bear in mind that Gadhafi is on the whole winning. The airstrikes are not effective. They’re certainly not stopping him; he’s been able to move from the defensive to the offense. He’s retaken some territory and the eastern alliance that NATOs clearly backing, whatever it says, is simply not able to gel into an effective military force.

I think the Turkish position from the very beginning was that this was a fairly arbitrary war. The decision to move into Libya instead of any of these other countries was random, but, more to the point, that it didn’t be provide any stability for the region. And in fact probably destabilized it somewhat, opening a door they feared for some very radical Islamists and moreover not being able to get rid of Gadhafi.

They’re certainly very concerned about what’s happening in Syria. That’s right on their border. They’re also always concerned about what the Iranians are doing, although they try to reach out and have decent relations with them. They’re worried about what’s happening in Iraq. The Turks are generally worried.

They’re especially worried about the possibility of another Hamas-Israeli war and the reason they’re worried about Hamas-Israeli war is that if Hamas were to carry out strikes that the Israelis chose to counter with another attack in Gaza, this might strengthen the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; it could destabilize the regime there. And the Turks don’t want to see that happen right now. They want to see a stable Egypt; they want to see a stable Mediterranean.

Our instincts throughout the rolling unrest in the Middle East and North Africa have been not to add to the problems by switching horses in mid-stream, and hence appearing feckless and unreliable as an ally. We said that about Egypt and Mubarak. Regarding Libya, we wouldn’t have gotten involved in military action, since no one has made a convincing case that vital US interests were at stake in doing so. (At a minimum our position would have made it unnecessary for the Secretary of State to make a fool of herself on national TV.)

We’ve never seen any of his TV shows, but Donald Trump is a very funny guy, if these clips are any indication. From being “proud” to be a birther, to the Tony Rezko non-scandal, to the whole Muslim thing, Trump skewers both the President and the media. No doubt many of the GOP presidential hopefuls are secretly grateful that there’s a billionaire celebrity who is happy to say such things so openly and with so much gusto. (More Trump here.)

Tom Friedman wrote a column in which he supported and was “proud” of the US decision to get involved in objectively supporting the rebels in Libya. Then he wrote this:

In Libya, we have to figure out whether to help rebels we do not know topple a terrible dictator we do not like, while at the same time we turn a blind eye to a monarch whom we do like in Bahrain, who has violently suppressed people we also like — Bahraini democrats — because these people we like have in their ranks people we don’t like: pro-Iranian Shiite hard-liners. All the while in Saudi Arabia, leaders we like are telling us we never should have let go of the leader who was so disliked by his own people — Hosni Mubarak — and, while we would like to tell the Saudi leaders to take a hike on this subject, we can’t because they have so much oil and money that we like. And this is a lot like our dilemma in Syria where a regime we don’t like — and which probably killed the prime minister of Lebanon whom it disliked — could be toppled by people who say what we like, but we’re not sure they all really believe what we like because among them could be Sunni fundamentalists, who, if they seize power, could suppress all those minorities in Syria whom they don’t like.

Friedman’s paragraph is anything but a reason to get involved in Libya or Syria. It seems to us more like an argument for: (a) oil drilling like crazy; and (b) no foreign entanglements.

Bad guys on every side. HT: GP

The AP asks a question:

If the purpose of the U.N.-sanctioned military action is to protect civilians, does that include pro-Gadhafi civilians who are likely to be endangered in places like Sirte that are in the rebels’ crosshairs? If not, it is difficult to see the Western intervention as a neutral humanitarian act not aligned with the rebels.

Things must be bad if even the AP can figure it out. Rule number one of speechmaking should be this: there should be fewer unresolved questions after a speech than before it.

From ABC in Australia:

The US has used AC-130 gunships and A-10 Thunderbolt tankbusters against Moamar Gaddafi’s troops in Libya, the Pentagon has confirmed. Vice Admiral Bill Gortney confirmed the use of the ground attack aircraft this morning but denied the US was directly supporting rebel fighters.

The towering incoherence of this must be very frustrating for the US military. If killing soldiers on one side of a conflict is not direct support for the other side, what is? HT: Belmont Club

We were told in the President’s speech that this was the proximate cause of the US making war on Libya: “we saw regime forces on the outskirts of the city. We knew that if we waited one more day, Benghazi -– a city nearly the size of Charlotte –- could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.”

At no point in the President’s speech was there any important distinction made between Libya and other similarly situated nations in the Middle East. So if Bashar Assad threatens to do something similar in Syria, might we expect US military action? Is the administration just making up policy on the fly, or are some critics on the Left correct?

Jackson Diehl of the WaPo has a question for the administration:

In Obama’s push for Mideast peace, whose side is he on?…A reasonable person might conclude from the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria et al., that the Middle East’s deepest problems have nothing to do with Israel and that the Obama administration’s almost obsessive focus on trying to broker an Israeli-Palestinian settlement in its first two years was misplaced. But Obama isn’t one of those persons…

A “senior defense official” accompanying Defense Secretary Robert Gates on his visit to Jerusalem last week put it this way: “The Israelis have a very deep strategic interest in getting out in front of the wave of populism that is sweeping the region…showing progress on the peace track with the Palestinians would put them in a much better position for where the region’s likely to be six months or a year from now.”

We simply don’t understand what on earth Gates is talking about. A nasty corner of the world may well be a lot nastier in six months, and “concessions” by Israel won’t make one bit of difference. But then again, an administration that calls Bashar Assad a reformer doesn’t have logic and coherence as its strong suit.

VDH reflects on Libya:

I believe there is a Western veneer of rebels and these are good hearted and brave reformers. And I believe most don’t know an RPG from an IED. Those that do are not pro-Western and not about to remove Qaddafi and his odious bunch in order to foster republican government.

The truth is that in the Arab Middle East constitutional government works mostly 1) in Israel; or 2) when the U.S. (in Germany, Italy, Japan fashion) removes a tyrant, destroys his government, occupies the country, writes the Constitution, and puts tens of thousands of troops on the ground to rebuild the society and shoot those who would hijack the reform — as in Iraq. Oddly, these are the two countries Obama has most criticized.

So the chance of a lasting Libyan consensual state arising from the ashes of Qaddafi are rather slim without such Western tutelage and expense. I fear the removal of tyrants is not the end of the Middle East war, but merely stage I, in Iranian 1979-1981 fashion, followed by stage II when the Islamists either liquidate the Google executives or co-opt the military.

Niall Ferguson said pretty much the same thing. Bummer. What happened to this sentiment: “to feel the energy and pride of a people taking back the keys to their country and their future from a tired old dictator, was a privilege…It was started by youth and enabled by Facebook and Twitter. It was completely non-violent.”

The Secretary of State clarified the differences between Libyans and mercenaries killing Libyans, and Syrians and Iranians (and Lebanese?) killing Syrians:

Clinton said the elements that led to intervention in Libya — international condemnation, an Arab League call for action, a United Nations Security Council resolution — are “not going to happen” with Syria, in part because members of the U.S. Congress from both parties say they believe Assad is “a reformer.”

Thanks for clearing that up. What a train wreck of a foreign policy, when the Secretaries of State and Defense can’t get on the same page on a news show. Do these senior officials spend their free moments trying to figure out how to get as far away as possible from this mess?

The one clear message to us of the turmoil is we ought to be developing our domestic energy resources as quickly as possible. Which is the one thing that will not happen with this crew in charge.

The Telegraph’s diplomatic editor reported that Egypt Air has removed Israel from its route maps, and added this:

the revolution wasn’t –- outside of the imaginations of some in the western media -– a Woodstock-like flower-power upsurge. In a thoughtful report, the International Crisis Group observed that “the role of Islamist activists grew as the confrontation became more violent and as one moved away from Cairo; in the [Nile] Delta in particular, their deep roots and the secular opposition’s relative weakness gave them a leading part.”

There’s also the fact that the army, which now rules Egypt, trusts the Brotherhood more than the secular-democrats. Elijah Zarwan, an ICG expert, recently said there was “evidence the Brotherhood struck some kind of a deal with the military.” This makes perfect sense, if you consider the Brotherhood can deliver peace on the streets.

It was, until its better-than-expected showing in the 2005 elections, a close ally of the military establishment that rules Egypt. Essam Sharaf, Egypt’s new prime minister, thus made a speech in Tahrir Square with the Brotherhood leader Mohammad el-Beltagi standing by his side.

I’m guessing a harder line on Israel will be just part of the Brotherhood’s pound of flesh: its 2007 draft manifesto also calls for non-Muslims and women to be denied from standing from president, and an Iran-style council of clerics to guide the workings of government.

How ridiculous the flower-power types have been made to look in such a short period of time. As for a map including Israel, Egypt Air used to be the exception, not the rule.

Andy McCarthy discusses Libya:

the rebels are a mixed bag. The strongest faction, particularly in ideological influence, is the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been in Libya for 70 years. There are also militant groups, such as Hasadi’s LIFG, that have ties to al-Qaeda, though they do not necessarily agree with bin Laden’s decision in the 1990s to take the violence global. In addition, there are Islamist organizations (such as the National Front for the Salvation of Libya) that claim to be non-violent and that oppose Qaddafi because they have come to regard him as non-Muslim, an apostate whose eccentric brand of Islam is seen as heterodox, and who persecutes his Muslim people. Moreover, there are undoubtedly al-Qaeda operatives in the mix, because al-Qaeda goes wherever the action is.

To describe these factions is not to discount the existence of some secular opposition to Qaddafi: some leftists who see an opportunity, and even some Western-influenced freedom fighters. Interventionists delude themselves, though, when they portray the latter as predominant, as the face of the rebels. Libya is a tribal Islamic backwater. That is why Qaddafi has always had to couch his despotism in Islamist rhetoric. It is why Libya, more than any other country by percentage of population, supported the insurgency in Iraq. In fact, rebel leader Hasadi claims to have recruited more than two dozen jihadists to that cause.

Qaddafi’s opposition is not driven by al-Qaeda. It is driven by sharia. Various factions want Qaddafi out so that they can install sharia and build a real Islamic state — one that is virulently anti-Israeli, anti-Western, and anti-American, a mirror image of what the Muslim Brotherhood is now poised to sculpt in Egypt. For now, Islamists have encouraged military Western help because they lack the resources needed to oust Qaddafi themselves — just as Bosnian Muslims could not defeat the Serbs, Iraqi Muslims could not defeat Saddam Hussein, and Afghan Muslims could not defeat the Soviet Union without American help. But as we’ve seen time and again, the embrace of American support never translates into an embrace of Americans…

The rebels are not rebels — they are the Libyan mujahideen. Like the Afghan mujahideen, including those that became al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the Libyan mujahideen comprise different groups. What overwhelmingly unites them, besides opposition to Qaddafi, is sharia.

It’s really disturbing that after ten long years our government still can’t think straight about what this long struggle is about.

Who would have thought that Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post would be writing such negative things about the administration?

what the hell are we doing? I realize that President Obama and his advisers have answered this question many times, but I feel it’s necessary to keep asking until the answers begin to make sense…

it seems obvious that as long as Gaddafi remains in power, Libyan civilians are threatened — not just in Benghazi and other rebel-held territory, but in Tripoli and other parts of the country where the government still holds sway. There are neighborhoods of the capital where residents showed open opposition to Gaddafi at the beginning of the uprising. Aren’t these civilians in mortal danger? Don’t they need to be protected too?

The only way to end the threat is to depose Gaddafi — which is what the United States wants to do. “It is U.S. policy that Gaddafi needs to go,” Obama said this week. So is that what we’re really doing in Libya, ousting a brutal dictator? Absolutely not. The military mission is specifically limited

Or how about this from Robinson’s colleague, Richard Cohen: “The change that Obama promised has settled on us all like an irritating drizzle. His ideas were untested by either age or experience.” If this is what they put in writing, what re they saying privately among themselves?