Indonesia dan Dinamika Politik Timur Tengah

Riza Sihbudi

Abstract

The current political tension in Arab states have intensified especially after similar crises that ousted Bin
Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt There are also differences in how nations have responded to each political crisis The Arab regimes are facing strong resistance from the majority of their own people with Libya
falling into civil war Many Libyan people arefed up and disgusted with the leadership of Colonel Qadhafi who
has ruled the countryfor 40 years with desert style authoritarianism People in Libya demanded a succession and
political reforms that wouldpave the wayforfreedom ofspeech and association which have eluded the nationfor
four decades Then why did the West take a differentpolitical attitude towards thepro democracy movements in the
Arab countries In the case ofLibya both mass media andpolitical elites drew a line in supporting the resistance movement The Westernforces under NATO even launched military strikes against Libya to support the opposition
camp as soon as they managed to convince the United Nations to enforce a nofly zone in Libyan airspace The
opportunistic attitude of the West in the case ofLibya is closely related to economic factors which is Libyan oil
reserves After successfully controlling Iraq Libya now seems to be the next easyprey especially by hawkish groups
and neo conservative that generally control US oil companies In the case of the NATO s political attitudes toward
the Libyan crisis economic considerations oil are more advanced than political reality Politically Qadhafi is now clearly different from what he was Before 2003 Qadhafi was known as an anti Westfigure The US and its
allies seem reluctant to learnfrom history Theirfailures in Iraq and Afghanistan are not enoughfor them to learn
That s the uglyfact of Western hypocrisy

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