World Press on Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus (April 2-4, 2011)

The Guardian published an article on the current oil price situation, which states that oil prices have hit their highest level since the financial crisis, amid continuing supply fears over the conflict in Libya and renewed optimism about global economic growth. US crude rose to $108.74 on Monday morning, its highest level since September 2008. The cost of a barrel of Brent crude, sourced from the North Sea, hit $119.54 on Monday. This left Brent just 25 cents away from its two-and-a-half year high, reached on 24 February, when the revolt against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was gathering pace.

The Washington Post published an analytical article headlined “Will Libya become Obama’s Iraq?” In making his case this past week for the use of force in Libya, President Obama sought to assure the American people that this intervention is prudent and wise, and that it bears no resemblance to the controversial and costly war in Iraq. However, according to the article, given the most obvious differences between Iraq and Libya — no ground troops in Libya and no U.N. resolution in Iraq — few will take issue with Obama’s protestation. Yet Obama’s road in Libya may prove more similar to President George W. Bush’s than it now appears.  The author states that the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan clearly demonstrate that decisions made about Libya in the next weeks and months will disproportionately affect the course of the nation for years to come. For instance, the early choice to declare Iraq a federal country allowed the Kurdish north to thrive, but it also seeded current battles over who has the authority to develop Iraq’s oil and gas. Similarly, early decisions to exclude certain groups from politics — senior Ba'ath party members in Iraq or those associated with the Taliban in Afghanistan — determined who was invested in the new states, and who would fight their emergence and consolidation.

The Los Angeles Times newspaper reports that it may have been a secular revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, but religious groups — some with violent pasts — have been building grass-roots networks for years. Now ultra-conservative and moderate groups feel their time has arrived.

The same agency also published an article entitled ‘Some in Germany critical of decision to sit out Libya operation’. According to the material, critics say Berlin has lost credibility and risks an isolationism it can ill afford. One former defense minister called the decision to break from longtime allies "a mistake of historic dimensions."