Ironies of this Arab Spring . . .

Amr Moussa

(Image from Wikipedia)

I read an interesting excerpt in the New York Times yesterday from a recent interview of Amr Moussa in Cairo by Raghida Dergham, diplomatic correspondent for the Al Hayat. Titled "The Goal in Libya Is Not Regime Change" (NYT, March 23, 2011), I gather from Moussa's remarks that his thoughts concerning Syria also do not include regime change:

Dergham: You haven't said much about Syria. Why so quiet so far?

Moussa: Because the situation there is still unclear.

Dergham: Do you want to wait until a lot of people die before it is clear?

Moussa: No, certainly not. We do not have the full picture as to what is going on. Is it in Deraa alone, or is there violence and crackdown in other places?

Dergham: You have seen the people asking for change, and you supported them strongly in Egypt, but you are hesitant to support them in Syria? There are demonstrations, and people are dead and people are wounded in Syria. What is your message as secretary general of the Arab League on that issue?

Moussa: I am certainly on the side of the free expression of the people, and I am certainly on the side of revolutions and the new uprising in the Arab world. No question about that.

Amr Moussa is the former (or at least 'departing') secretary general of the Arab League and has declared his candidacy for the presidency of Egypt, and while I can understand his difficult position on the issue of calling for regime change in somebody else's country, I think that Dergham has underlined the irony well. Moussa supports the "revolutions" without openly supporting "regime change," but isn't that what revolutions do? Change regimes? Didn't that happen recently in Egypt? Isn't Moussa a beneficiary of that Egyptian regime change? Isn't he running for the presidency of Egypt.

That's all I have time for today . . .