2111 GMT: The latest news from Yemen is that 3 soldiers and 5 civilians have died in Taiz, as the government shelled the city for yet another day. Earlier, before some of this violence, Mohammed Basindwa, appointed by the opposition to lead the transitional government, said that if the violence continues it could threaten the GCC deal. Well, the violence did continue throughout the day, and the death toll did rise, so we'll soon see whether Basindwa withdraws from the negotiated deal.
2015 GMT: Activists share this video, which reportedly shows anti-Assad protesters chanting in the clear presence of tanks and snipers in Taftanaz, Idlib province, reportedly today. We have no way of verifying the details:
The moral reasons for a no-fly zone have only grown as the humanitarian crisis has worsened. The geopolitical incentives are stronger than ever. Now the logistical and practical possibilities are emerging.
There will be a no-fly zone, with or without US participation. Turkey wants it, France is chomping at the bit for it, and at the end of the day the rest of the world will realize that there is at least one more domino that needs to fall.
I will be in Manchester today at the "Smart Power, Smart Philosophy" conference, one of a series of interrogations of "Hard, Soft, and Smart Power in the American Century".
Updates on our LiveBlogs on Iran and on Syria and Beyond will resume this afternoon with James Miller and Josh Shahryar. In the meantime, my thanks to readers for bringing in news and ideas via the Comments sections --- and do have a read of our features today on Iran and Egypt.
Even though we still do not have the answer to who gave the green light to Tuesday's plan, this appears to be a confused regime, trying to sort out its next steps after the unexpected turn in developments. Indeed, the lack of an answer to our questions, "Who is responsible? Who is co-ordinating?", is telling. A fragmented political system, beset by in-fighting for months, appears to have embarked on a risky venture which has quickly run into trouble.
2050 GMT: The Embassy Tit-for-Tat. Many thanks to Josh Shahryar for running the LiveBlog today.
The "Occupiers of the Sedition Nest of Old Fox", formed in the aftermath of Tuesday's attack on the British Embassy, have announced they will be at the airport on Friday to welcome the Iranian diplomats expelled from the UK.
In another attempt at pressure on remaining diplomats of the "West", Tehran Provincial Governor Morteza Tamaddon said their visit to the British Embassy compound at Qolhak Garden is "suspicious" and he has reported it to the Foreign Ministry.
Iranian authorities have banned foreign media from covering any rallies in front of British diplomatic missions.
Meanwhile, Norway has reopened its embassy after a 24-hour closure for "security concerns".
Wael Ghonim, February 2011Months have gone by without any meaningful change in how the country is governed. The military is not listening to the angry youths who led the revolution; some have been arrested, tried in military courts and thrown into military prisons. Leaders of the former regime have been tried in ordinary courts, despite the gravity of their crimes against the nation. Each day that passes without a clear road map for radical change in the management of our country leads young people to feel more frustrated and driven to escalate the situation.
But I believe that anyone participating in effecting change cannot be a pessimist. This is why, when it comes to Egypt’s future, I am an optimist. Revolution is a process; its failure and success cannot be measured after only a few months, or even years. We must continue to believe.
2033 GMT: Following the BICI report on human rights abuses in the wake of unrest in Bahrain, the Bahraini government is scheduled to shake up their law enforcement structure. And they've picked an American, with vast experience in handling difficult situations, to help out.
Bahrain's Interior Ministry says a former Miami police chief will lead training programs for the Gulf kingdom's forces as part of reforms after an independent report detailed abuses against pro-reform protesters.
The announcement Thursday says John Timoney will head a team of law enforcement advisers from the U.S. and Britain.
Good news, right? Clearly, the Bahraini police need training, leadership, and restraint, so Timoney will restore the honor of the police force. The St. Petersburg Times, back in 2003, reported on Timoney's stellar record:
Miami police Chief John Timoney must be mighty proud of the social order he maintained during the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit a couple of weeks ago in Miami - sort of the way Saddam Hussein was proud of quieting dissension in his country.
Timoney has a well-deserved reputation for using paramilitary tactics to turn any city where large protests are planned into a place where the Constitution has taken a holiday. During the FTAA meeting on Nov. 20, Timoney dispatched 2,500 police officers in full riot gear against a crowd estimated at 8,000 people, mostly union members and retirees.
2130 GMT: The Embassy Attack. Hossein Alizadeh, the charge d’affaires at the Iranian embassy in Finland who resigned because of the crackdown on post-election dissent, has spoken to Inside Iran about the takeover of the British Embassy:
I would never believe that the Iranian security forces who had the power to crackdown on millions of street protesters in 2009 are now incapable of stopping a few hundred people from entering the British Embassy. Therefore, I believe there was a hidden agenda to drive this action. I am pretty sure that the attackers were not students. They are the same pressure groups that oppress the opposition forces within the country.
Many reports have used the term "students" to describe those who demonstrated and occupied the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday. However, if you take a closer look at what the Iranian media and the "students" themselves are saying, you will get a much better idea of who is responsible.
Throughout the attack, major State-run news organizations like Iranian Students News Agency and Islamic Republic News Agency were running updates of how "students" had broken into the Embassy. Fair enough --- you would not expect these outlets to give away the identities of the attackers; there is a concept called plausible deniability, and the Iranian regime is fully aware of it. So to understand what was occurring, one has to look for the proverbial stupid friend.
2125 GMT: Josh Shahryar has done a great job wrapping up our Egypt coverage in the previous update, and we'll close the blog looking forward. By tomorrow, we should see the fuller results, and we'll watch as the nation, and the political parties, react. Suffice it to say, the Islamists did quite well, though with no single party likely to hold a majority, we'll most likely be looking at a coalition government. Then Egypt will have to learn the first lesson of Democracy - how to govern when not everyone agrees.
In Syria, we started by looking to Turkey, as new sanctions were announced today, but the big stories were closer to home. With tanks storming Dael, a mass-shooting in Idlib, and large student demonstrations in Aleppo, today was just another sign that this conflict is hardly isolated to Homs and Hama. Assad's problems are everywhere.
Which brings up the next point. Idlib has not seen violence like this in many weeks, though protests have steadily been growing there. Dael had zero military presence at the start of the day, and the army had to deploy dozens of tanks, armored vehicles, buses, and perhaps as many as 1000 soldiers to the city in order to commence a new crackdown. Aleppo, once untouchable, has seen protests of some sort nearly every day for the last week. Assad has problems, but he does not have forces everywhere he has problems, and even where he thinks he does not have problems he has problems.
As evidence of this, the LCCS has posted this video, reportedly showing the military bombardment of Rankous, north of Damascus. Two weeks ago we did not know where this town was, but since then we've seen an increased presence of protests, and now several days of bombardment:
And we've seen yet another crack in Assad's armor, as a large army unit defected today in Idlib. So even within Assad's forces, his trusted solution, he still has problems.
Friday, December 2, 2011 at 6:59
