Is the US to resign from the world?
The US course and the rules governing its foreign policy at the moment are blurry at best, observed Rajeh al Khoury, a columnist with the Lebanese Annahar daily.
"Are they based on principles and values as in the days of Dwight Eisenhower or on interests as they have been since the 1960s?"
What is certain is that since the tsunami of change hit the Middle East region, hesitation, ambivalence and vagueness have been dominating US attitudes toward this colossal development.
Despite the importance of the Middle East and the Gulf region, which is most vital for its national security, everything that has come out from the US since the Arab revolutions started has been nothing but a series of contradictory statements and positions.
Washington may have agreed to UN Security Council resolution 1973 and the no-fly zone decision out of fear of a massacre in Benghazi, but just as it tiptoed its way into the military operation, it started tiptoeing its way out of it.
In his Tuesday address, the US president Barack Obama assured his critics of his adherence to a restricted military role for the US in Libya, which means Washington isn't ready for another Iraqi fiasco.
"The deep division within the US on the issue of international interference sends negative signals to many places that promise more bloody confrontations between regimes and peoples."
Exile is the best way out for Qaddafi
The problem with the Libyan revolution is that it differs from the other ongoing Arab revolutions, observed Mazen Hammad, a columnist with the Qatari Al Watan daily.
Libya is the only country in rebellion to need multinational military intervention. The West is supposed to fulfil its promise to depose Col Qaddafi.
Col Qaddafi's persistence on the Libyan political scene means that the revolution did not prevail and the war will not stop any time soon. More importantly, it means that the country could be divided, a most tragic exit that the Libyan regime has been promoting as a "solution" to Nato's raids.
"This can neither be a solution nor a compromise. This is nothing short of a division of an Arab country that has had its current borders drawn since the 1930s. Therefore, we agree with Nato that the colonel must disappear from the picture especially since his image is the only institution he established since he seized power four decades ago."
The crucial question is what if the alliance strikes and the rebels pursuit of Qaddafi's forces were to fail? "This brings us back to what Washington declared recently about the possibility of finding an exit through exiling Qaddafi and his family to an undetermined state."
This would surely be the least destructive outcome of this ongoing bloody war.
Egypt's torture record is critical tool
Last week's report by the Egyptian human rights council's fact-finding commission, which is investigating the crimes that occurred during Egypt's January 25 revolution, must not be handled only as an incriminating document, noted the Egyptian Al Ahram newspaper in its editorial.
"The report must also be presented as research material for psychologists, sociologists and historians to form a better idea about the mind and manners of the cohort that ruled Egypt before the revolution."
The report confirmed that crimes against humanity were indeed perpetrated by the police and the ruling party's goons against demonstrators. Crimes ranged from deliberate and random killings to assaults resulting in disability, abductions and torture.
"Now, investigations must continue and be followed by trials so we know exactly what happened, and how and why it did.Light must be shed on that dark era in Egypt's history, and from there we can all work together to make sure it does not happen again."
Also, all the media outlets that put out misleading news and covered up for the security excesses on the streets must be held accountable.
For years Egypt lacked a fact-finding commission that exposed wrong wherever it is. So this one must be granted all independence to carry its task through.
Morocco's king ushers in promise of reforms
Muslim clerics in Morocco declared their full support of the Moroccan king's role as the country's Commander of Believers, in a statement issued yesterday by the Supreme Council of Clerics, the nation's highest religious jurisprudence body, reported the online newspaper Hespress, citing the Moroccan state news agency, MAP.
The statement comes after King Mohammed VI's address to the nation on March 9, where he announced important constitutional reforms in response to the political and social demands of protestors who took to the streets of various Moroccan cities on February 20. In his speech, the king reaffirmed the monarchy's religious status as one of Morocco's fundamental tenets.
The clerics said the king's role as Commander of Believers is "to the nation what the soul is to the body" and expressed confidence that the king will "address the nation's aspirations to more dignity, pride and justice".
"The fact that the political, civil and human rights situation in Morocco is unique must be acknowledged," the clerics said, noting that leading reforms in the country, and seeing to its implementation, lies with the Commander of the Believers, through his role as the protector of religion and governing systems.
* Digest compiled by The Translation Desk
translation@thenational.ae