The chain of uprisings across the Arab world plainly caught the US and Europe, as well as allied Arab rulers, on the hop. Comfortably aligned with dictators who ostensibly guaranteed them stability and cheap oil, western leaders dispensed liberal nostrums while checking in their democratic principles at the palace gate or the tent flap.
Their response to Arab revolution is evolving. From the first shocked vacillations between wobble and waffle, western rhetoric has become more assured. Yet the west’s performance still looks inadequate, especially in the face of the increasingly unhinged Muammer Gaddafi.
The Arab crisis has exposed mercilessly the cosiness of links between western and, above all, European leaders and their regional counterparts. The fawning greed with which Britain, France and Italy have sought oil and business opportunities from Colonel Gaddafi’s murderous regime now looks particularly tawdry. Is that only with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight?